New Blog

because of the current frustration with blogger and how the template is driving me insane, i've decided to switch over to wordpress.

click here (www.gloriajhsu.wordpress.com)

see you on the new site!

some Starbucks time

George & mel came over after work to hang out. We met up with my sister (who needed to write a paper) at starbucks. We played for an hour and a half of mario cart! Crazy!! poor sister had to write her paper so she couldn't play...

a night of good competitive fun

Deadlines

so today i had this thought while doing my daily blog surfing that deadlines are a good thing. It it so easy for me to put things off and not "think" about them until it's a more convenient time that eventually, I never really get to do or process things that are important. Deadlines help push me to be more intentional with my time everyday. I live off making lists of things to do or note to self. The process of crossing things off after finishing tasks leaves me with a reminder of a productive day.

So whether it be a book to read, a room to clean, a big decision to make, a dream to pursue, a project to start and complete or an appointment you really don't want to make but know you should, deadlines help. they are a good thing.

Here are some deadlines I made for myself:

1. make an appointment to see the dentist by 12/31/07
2. clean my scrapbook room by 10/04/07
3. decide about joining Vision this year by 10/07/07
4. scrapbook this week

the 'tasks' program on my phone keeps me on top of the things I need to remember...



I remember in Harry Potter, Dumbledore had this pool of thoughts that he goes to. He takes out his thoughts and puts them into the pool so that he can have room to store more thoughts and not be afraid to forget the old thoughts. That's so why I use things like the 'tasks' program on my phone, why I blog & journal, why I take pictures. That way I have a place to store these memories and make room for daily incoming thoughts and memories with people.

A nice fountain

a fun day together

It's funny how she brings her laptop to school but her laptop doesn't have the word application to take notes on.

A surprise visit from...

Break time (between her english and philosophy) = DS time, Robeks (their version of jamba juice), Yoga Journal and my sister checking facebook on her laptop every now and then

this is me following my sister through a day in her life...

Things to look forward to

• Christmas music has been playing in my car for about 2 weeks now. I skip Halloween & Thanksgiving and start the season after Labor day.
  
• maybe a real christmas tree this year?
  
• Debating on if i should have a nice & small christmas party this year or big and fun one
• Snowboarding season... gonna try to hit the slopes as much as I can this season to make up for not boarding at all last season
• our place that will eventually be nice, neat & organized
• scrapbooking again
• taking pictures again
• Disneyland. (i REALLY can't wait for this one! i miss it SO much!!)
• finding time to journal and connect with God
• do some yoga instead of just reading about it
• keep focus on training for the Triathlon.
  

wow... there's a lot to look forward to. Thanks for such a fulfilled life, God.

What does D.S. stand for?

New gift from my sister, georgie and mel for my birthday. We played mario cart after church together and it was tons of fun. I LOVE the black carrying case with red stitch trims. It matches my phone too! i think i have a thing for red. or more maroon red. love it. (thanks you guys! i heart you) Now when Mike plays Madden... i can play on the ds!



At night, I met up with the roommates again for dinner at Grand Lux Cafe. I had my camera in my bag and everything, but when the food came, I totally forgot to take pictures. So I told myself that I'll at least get a picture of the dessert. Nope. forgot about that too.

The Baileys Coffee was really good and the Cajun Rib Eye was alright. I probably enjoyed the fries more (when do I not?). I really think they should have a french fries restaurant serving all different types of fries with all different types of seasoning & dipping sauce. YUM! i love fries.

Baked potato night!

We had this huge sack of potatoes from costco that we couldn't finish... So we called up my family and pam to come over for a 'baked potato night'. It was sooo yummy. Now we're so carb-ed out and really to sleep.

It's Official.

vs.

Sunday, December 16th... 1 something pm
4th row on at the 40 yard line - colts side

it's exciting.

I hope we don't get killed by raider fans... they seem kinda... passionate.

maybe i'll get to shake Tony Dungy's hand. that would be awesome.

First picture with canon sd 750

the camera came! not a very fun picture, but it's the first test shot. more pictures to follow. yay!

So I know Mike thinks it's ridiculous that I wanted another camera after I told him that once I get my xti, I wouldn't get another camera for another like 10 years (or however long my xti lives for... I tried to convince him with analogies like it's the same as him having 5 guitars or having madden '06, '07 & '08 - he doesn't think it's the same)... but 2 things happened since...

1. my sister lost my small camera (so she offered to pay for a new one for me)
2. people tend to look at me weird when I bring my xti to restaurants and I really like taking pictures of food. (gotta remember if the meal was good enough to go back to try other things, right?)

So that brings me to getting the canon (gotta stay with the same brand) SD 750. The 3 inch LCD screen got me. The really cool thing is that it uses a SD card and my treo uses a mini SD card. The mini SD card comes with a adapter thing that converts the mini SD to a regular SD. That means.... I can use the same SD card to take pictures and upload & blog from my phone! So now, I can remember my everyday with words and pictures.

I was never sure how much I wanted to write on this blog and what this blog was meant for... I don't really know who reads this or if anyone reads this at all. I do know that when I re-read what I've posted before, I get a rush of memories for that particular day and that particular moment. I love that. So I decided this blog will be a place for the following things:

• to remember my daily events & thoughts
• pictures, photography, and more pictures
• to share everything scrapbook related
  
• to use the journaling on these posts for my scrapbook pages
• to improve my writing skills
  

so now when I don't remember why I'm blogging... I can look back and blog with reason.

my talented sister doing one of her many jumps

This is how I want to live my life

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.
Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.
Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.
Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.
Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

And on my actual birthday...

The original plan for today was to go to the LA Fair, eat lots of food and take lots of pictures. I even ordered my lens to arrive by Monday so that I can have it in time to go take pictures at the fair.... but we found out later that the fair is closed on mondays and tuesdays. BOOOO! so mike decided to bbq for lunch.



We stayed home majority of the day eating the delicious ribs and watching a dvd (school of rock). took our time to get ready and headed down to cerritos/lakewood area for dinner. We had some time to kill so we ended up at the cerritos mall and watched Rush Hour 3.

After the movie... we went to Joe's Sushi! =) i heart sushi



The crazy thing is that the party isn't over yet. I have carrot cake to look forward to on Thursday with people at work and something fun with the roommates sometime next week?

I am beyond blessed to have awesome people that shower me with love. I didn't think turning 25 was that big of a deal, but it turned out to be a big celebration.

Thank you for all the facebook comments, the text messages, the hugs, the phone calls, the dinners, the drinks, the memories that were created this past weekend.

Happy Birthday, Bryan & Brandon

Today is a special day... today is my cousins Bryan & Brandon's 13th birthday!!! Wow... they are finally teens. When I saw them in April, I forgot that they were only 12... i kept thinking they were 17, getting ready for college. They are probably way taller than me now, and more stressed with school in Singapore =)



Boys, if you are reading this... I hope you got my SMS. "Happy birthday!!" Hope you had an awesome birthday today. We love you TONS and TONS and wish you a very blessed year ahead.

I went to work, my sister didn't make it to school cos she got a stye in her eye... so she came to the cafe to do her work. after work, we went to old town to shop around urban and forever but didn't get anything but 2 necklaces. She had a doctor's appointment at 4, so we didn't have time to really shop at any other places.

It's funny how it ended up to be a family affair. My parents ended up showing up at the hospital /clinic too. My dad and I waited outside (and instead of talked to each other, we texted each other with our phones... my dad is obsessed with his phone) while my mom went in to see the doctor with my sister.

My mom convinced me to go to dinner with the family at Yasmin... but I needed to make another costco run with my sister. So after shopping at costco with my sister, we went home to pick up mike and headed over to another yummy dinner.

We feasted and went home to watch "what a girl wants" {my favorite movie}

more fun and good food

so i slept in cos by the time i showered and slept, it was after 4am. Mike got to watch the colts game at 10am so it worked out well for both of us. =)

it was a relaxing day of just sleeping and sleeping... (SO needed it after a late night and the 5 miles) at 4pm we left to go to Brian's birthday bbq. That was a lot of fun. Got to chat with some people there and eat more good food. Even tho I slept all day, I was still really tired... so we went home around 9 (i think)

I'm hip, I'm young..

7:00am - wake up
7:15am - leave the house
7:45am - arrive at Jeymi's house
7:55am - leave Jeymi's house
8:15amish - jeymi (or was it sean?) receives a call saying that they require all runners to be doing 12 min/mile {are they freaking kidding me?!?!? damn it, we're going to be the last ones and the police will have to escort us to the finish line cos we can't run 12 min/miles!!!}
8:50amish - arrive at the starting point {oh my goodness, i've never seen so many people wanting to run in my life!}
9:00am - BEGIN the NIKE RUN HIT REMIX
9:05am - crossed the starting line
9: 20am - finished mile 1 {damn it! 4 more to go!!! - ok, let's walk one light and run one light}
... after walking more lights than running the lights.... a jamba juice stop...
10:35 ish - crossed the finish line!

after the race, we got our medal, banana, water, sports bar and headed to alcove for some breakfast/coffee

That was just the beginning of my day.

I went home, found my parents there and after having my mom cook me scramble eggs... we went to get a foot massage. ($15/hr) totally needed it =)

Went home and napped for 30 mins before Mike came home from hanging out with his friends. Got ready for the night and headed out to dinner at the boiling crab in Alhambra.

Thank You gerogie, lover, fat, charlene, sister, neh, freak, june, singer, koj, pam, sandra, andrew, jeffery, and mike for coming out to dinner. It was some awesome seafood. very yum!

After dinner and a MASSIVE mango cake from lover, we headed over to J Lounge in LA. The club was cool... really really crowded. DJ wasn't so hot... but it was fun. good company, fun times =)

thanks for the pictures josh!

The night ended with everyone meeting at the beloved K.T Cafe for some good lemon ice tea. Got home at 3:30am... I have not done that in SO LONG!

The feasting begins

My family went to Manna (all you can eat korean bbq) for dinner. My parents have not been there before and Mike & I were craving korean bbq, so I thought it was a good reason to go and pig out! It was very very good... thank goodness I was going to walking 5 miles the very next morning.

a simple prayer

Lord, not my will, but your will be done

Today i...
- went to F3 to volunteer
- hung out at the cafe
- worked 4 hours at the cafe
- read magazines
- drank coffee
- bothered my sister as she tried to do her math homework

Latte that smiles

there's art in making lattes at work

Dessert

Gotta end the night with my favorite dessert (coffee and taramisu)

fun night of catching up, laughing at each other and tons of food... a typical night out with these girls.

Girls night out

Magnolia on hollywood & vine

some good stuff today

1. The Colts Won! Picture Taken Super Bowl XLI (2006)
   
2. Mike cooked up some awesome rib-eye steak, potato salad, corn on the cob, fresh gauc, chicken wings. I'm so full.
3. I ordered this kit. one of my many birthday presents from Mike. (Everything I bought since August has been "for my birthday") For my next trip, I'm determined to scrap it. can't wait to get my very first kit.
   
4. good stuff yesterday: walked once around the rose bowl yesterday with Erin and my sister. totally do-able. good pace... can't wait to do it again =)
   

A VERY hot day at Sea World

We got to feed the dolphins!! It was a lot of fun... Now I want to bring one home with me. It's so hot here... We're both sun burned. Me more so than mike. We're trying to stay cool and shaded as we wait for shamu rocks at 7:30. It's been a fun day so far :)

Step 1

Today, I bought the tool (with a 30% coupon - whoo hooo!) that will help me get started on training for the triathlon. It took me a while to decide if this is what I really want to do... but I decided to go for it and see where it takes me. I should be able to warm up with the Nike Run Hit Remix. Something fun the roommates & I will get to do together in September. it's about time i get my lazy couch potato butt up and do something about myself. I found this training guide to help get myself to run the 3 miles in 7 months.

I also got to do a little shopping with my sister at Target. They had a pretty good sale on clothes there... so we scored a couple tops and dresses. After target, we dropped by fosselman's ice cream for some yummy rum raisin. I also volunteered in the morning and had some "glo time" after at the cafe. I was advised to stay off coffee until my text on Wednesday. It's suppose to help me be less anxious. I'm going to give it a try. The thought of not having my cup of coffee in the morning already puts me in a bad mood... but i would like to be as less anxious as possible this week leading up to the GRE.

Tomorrow... we go to sea world!!! {I love San Diego... such a nice city. I think I would love to live in either San Diego or Pasadena if we stay in So. California.} We bought tickets to go there earlier in june to celebrate our anniversary... and this summer they have the buy one get one free ticket deal... so we wanna go back before their summer shows end. It should be fun.... a good way to end a fun weekend.

in the mist of the stress of studying and applying to school again... i made a list of things i would like to do before this summer ends. How many of it will i really get to do? i have no clue. we'll just wait and see...

this week started out pretty 'eh'. i tend to dwell on the negative emotions more than the positives... i'm such an Eeyore. things need to change. as crazy as things are... there has been so much positives this week...

- volunteering has been a really good experience so far... it's been so interesting meeting different kids with different things they need to work on. the therapists at the clinic are all really friendly. i get to ask questions and learn the different ways they do therapy. it totally opened my eyes to why i want to pursue this career again.

- mike has been so patient, caring and supportive. he truly is my biggest fan. he's assured me over and over again that i can do this and i'm capable of it... he's the best.

- i had a really good conversation with my sister over dinner this week. i really like hanging out with her. we have so much to talk, vent and laugh about. i'm going miss having her around when she goes back to school

- i'm blessed to have a job that let's me be creative. i'm also blessed to have awesome co workers at work to hang out and chat with.... coffee to drink as i please... and be inspired to create for 20 hours a week. i'm thinking of investing in digital kits to scrapbook and do more hybrid scrapping.

- i have great friends who pray for me, care for me, and love me for me.

it really hasn't been all bad... i need to just be more positive and remember the good things in life too.

** i miss you, maija! let's get some lunch together soon. i'll call you **

GRE

it's one of those days...

it's one of those days where things don't go the way you want it to... you waste time at the sprint store trying to get them to fix your phone when there was really nothing wrong with it in the first place.

It's one of those days where the alarm isn't working so you can't set it and should stay at home instead of go out.

It's one of those days that you just set your schedule for the next 4 weeks and it's INSANELY packed with work, volunteer and GRE studying...

It's one of those days where you really should be studying for the GRE but rather do anything else but study

It's one of those days that you just feel really overwhelmed by everything and want to sleep and not wake up for a month of so.

it's one of those days.

i'm so full.

Saying Goodbye

i hate saying goodbye.... especially to people that i admire, love, am inspired by and care for. It's already been done twice this summer and probably one more time before this year ends.

Working at Fuller is probably one of the best decisions I've made in the last 12 months. I got to learn about coffee... but more than just coffee, I learned how art is incorporated in what we do at the cafe. I learned that it takes so much hard work for the farmers to individually pick out the coffee beans that we enjoy everyday and how important it is for us to support them by drinking fair trade coffee. I learned that as much as the people I work with love coffee and tea, they also love God's creation and His people. The cafe counter was a magical place. There, we shared our life struggles, our questions, our doubts, our frustrations, our stories, our solutions... we shared moments of breaking news (like Maija being pregnant), hugs, high-fives after rushes, and most importantly, we shared community.

Earlier this summer, I had to say good bye to Alisia, Derek and Emi. There was something about Alisia that drew me to her. I was always so inspired to clean and be organize every time I work with her. She inspired me to do my best at everything. Taking over her position at work started out to be overwhelming... but I'm slowly catching on. Every time I look at the chickens on the top of my computer screen, I'm reminded of her. =)

This past week, I had to say good bye to Dave, Betsy and JJ. 3 awesome people that have blessed and inspired me more than they know. I have NEVER in my life had such a cool manager. Rarely was he "Dave - the cafe manager"... he was mostly "Dave - the cool guy that we blamed every thing on" I was so inspired by our conversations behind the counter about how to live our every day life as church. I love how much he loved his family and how committed he was to them. Betsy is an amazing women. I remember once we were talking about the topic of making money and as this family is preparing to do missions overseas, she looks at me and shrugs, "we have the rest of our lives to make money.. that can wait"

I've been struggling this year to redefine myself. To really see what my core values and goals are in life. To see what I'm about... and the past year... I've learned that there ARE people in this world that HAVE the opportunity to be rich or wealthy or even just financially stable, but give that up to serve God and His people. Those people inspire me. To not just SAY they follow Christ... but really sacrificially follow Christ.... that blows me away!

My whole life has been about material things. It has been about defining success as the world defines it. It has been about choosing my own path and dreams instead of obeying God's path for me. It has been about living extravagantly when I strive to live simply. It's almost like the core of who I want to be was being suppressed by this overwhelming race to keep up with others.

Saying good bye is hard and painful. It's hard to say good bye to good friends that move away and it's even harder to say good bye to a lifestyle you're so use to but want to change so badly. I don't claim to be able to do it on my own... but I do want to try. I want to be less superficial and more intentional with my friendships. I want to hope for people instead of condemning them. I want to strive for simplicity instead of extravagance. I want to follow my core being instead of conforming to who/what society thinks I should be or value.

So to my friends that I had to say good bye to recently.... I'm excited for the adventure God's taking you and your family on. The people that I'm so sure you'll bless and inspire (as you have done for me) along your life journey and the stories & memories you'll have to share with us when we meet again... and thank you, for making a difference in my life.

messy spirituality

'' it's amazing how few of us believe in the unqualified grace of God. oh yes, God loves us, as long as we're clean and whole and fixed. but it turns out that what disqualifies you and me from "spirituality" - the mess of our lives and our cripppledness - is what most qualifies us to be chosen by Jesus."

being lazy. resting. napping. hanging out in the pool. bachelor party. fun with close friends. nfl network. surfing the web on a 24in iMac.

Hosanna

I see the king of glory
Coming down the clouds with fire
The whole earth shakes, the whole earth shakes
I see his love and mercy
Washing over all our sin
The people sing, the people sing

Hosanna, hosanna
Hosanna in the highest

I see a generation
Rising up to take their place
With selfless faith, with selfless faith
I see a new revival
Staring as we pray and seek
We're on our knees, we're on our knees

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me
Break my heart for what breaks yours
Everything I am for your kingdom's cause
As I walk from earth into eternity

The Scotts

We spent about 3 or 4 hours just running around fuller campus taking pictures on a friday afternoon. It was TONS of fun. JJ was SOOO good at smiling big for me almost everytime we asked. here are my favorites =)