1 year anniversary to my cross country trip!

it's exactly a year since i made a 9 hour trip from redondo beach, CA to cedar city, UT. managed to dig out my emails to find my mass email about the part of the cross-country trip. here it is:

Hi peeps,

I've reached Cedar City, UT by 7 p.m. It's cold here! Totally unprepared wearing thin cardigan and flip flops! Saw some snow remnants too. I guess I'll be relying on my Purdue sweatshirt for the next drive. Next stop: Denver, CO which is 578 miles away from here. Continue praying for me alrighty!

Good news: Just found out this afternoon that I'll be having the on-site interview for the company in Virginia. Scheduled to be for next Monday. Whoa...tight schedule, but I'll give it a try!

Mel

and here i am, living on my own in beautiful northern virginia, having a job that i thoroughly enjoy, with community that's welcoming and warm. truly blessed to be where i am now. who knows what another year shall bring to my life, but i hope i'm still filled with thanksgiving for what god has given me, be it joy or sorrow.

finished my toastmasters speech draft in a local starbucks when i saw a lot of teenagers hanging out in the cafe, talking and laughing loudly. i wondered whether they're skipping school since it's a regular wednesday morning. funny enough, a cop came to buy his latte and the group immediately dispersed and left. it's sad to see how kids who have the privilege to get education choose to be idle instead of attending school. i wonder how their parents feel when they find out that these kids are skipping school, especially since all of them are mexican americans. their parents have worked hard to enter this country for their definition of american dreams, but their kids aren't aware of their strive and choose to follow the norm. i digress.

slow and steady

it's been 6 months since i got trained in cd sem. while the first 4 months had been a free ride, the trainer finally toughened up by the 5th month. i myself was stubborn enough to try working on tool recovery and the whole investigation fiasco on my own. hours spent on recipe creation, which i bet frustrated my trainer, but hey...i finally learned! and i was definitely happy about it. last week has been a humbling experience for me, being on my own while my trainer's out for vacation. it's my first time doing manual wafer recovery (and thank god, it was successful!). 2 tools went down, both which i couldn't recover...and i almost thought i broke a wafer. it's definitely god's grace that the tool did go down hard and the vendor managed to safely evacuate the wafer.

i also realized how americans are afraid of us misspeaking about them for our limitation of language. sometimes i do get a little offended when they don't take my words into consideration, but the good yet crooked news is that i can have free ride during meetings. i don't have to say a lot and people will understand for "i am the foreign kid". i think i'm at this point of my life in which i am a leader among my friends and peers, but rather choose to be a follower in professional setting. good balance i guess. coming from a culture that promotes submission, my personality is too strong for the general asian population consensus, but it's deemed to be nitwit weak in the western world, probably because i don't quite show my true self.

anyway, 2009 is indeed coming to an end. been sleepless during the times i'm supposed to be in bed. how true it is that the night shift is no longer as exciting as i thought it'd be.

inspiring quote

we had a new guest for toastmasters meeting on monday, a guy named bill. as usual, those who didn't get the opportunity to speak during the meeting would have to say a few words during the table topic session. margaret, the table topic master, cleverly put together a few questions about "first". simple questions: first kiss, first date, and for bill, it's either first job or the most embarrassing moment he's ever had. margaret told bill that he could ignore the question and talk about other things that he didn't mind sharing to the club. bill confidently walked to the podium and talked about his daughter's wedding, how he gave the toast to everybody and this was what he said:

"never lie, steal, cheat, or drink. but if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. if you must steal, steal away from bad company. if you must cheat, cheat death. and if you must drink, drink in the moments that take your breath away."

wow...that's one creative and powerful quote for a toast! being a skeptic, i went home to look it up, to see whether any famous people had originated that quote before. turned out to be from the movie, hitch! kuddos to bill for bringing up a good quote from a movie.

the 5 day of rest really sets me off for a fresh start of my long work week. i am a little dreadful for i fear that i will not survive the 12 hour day after having the 8 hour work routine for a week. hopefully the yoga class would make me alert and awake for the entire night.

a few more weeks till sis' coming! i'm finally having a company!

bleeding finger

if i had a slightest bit of interest in biology when i was in college, i think i would have chosen medicine as my career path. i passed all the criteria for a doctor: i love people, i am not bothered by the gory sight of blood, and i don't mind working long hours. i cut myself when i was slicing oranges to pack for work. the cut was pretty deep. run my finger under cold water and the bleeding still didn't stop. managed to find a band aid to finally stop the bleeding. half a day later, went to a nearby grocery store when i incidentally scratched that same finger. it bled again and droplets of blood started dripping onto the floor! i was a little panicky. thank goodness i had an extra band aid and i actually used the paper wrapping to mop the blood off the floor. of course, it didn't clean the floor well. seemed like it was a crime scene when i left.

it's 9:30 in the morning and i am getting ready to get to bed. i love night shift. i don't miss any activities during the day (though i spend most of the time hibernating), while it's more peaceful working at night. i am still a little frazzled about my routines: should i brush my teeth before i take a 5 hour nap? (yes, i should since it's equivalent to my regular sleep anyway), how soon can i wake up so that i don't get tired throughout the night? should i shower again when i get up? i will straighten out all these habitual questions in a few weeks (or days?)

new life in manassas

day 6 in virginia and day 2 at work. have yet to figure out what i'm going to work on since these two days are filled with orientations. the good news is that i'll have a day off tomorrow. will check out the toastmasters club at work and maybe do a little window shopping at ikea for the new apartment. oh ya, i'll be moving into my own apartment too. it's going to be a new adventure for i'll be paying my own bills and yes, i'll be on my own!

it's all starting to make sense now. as a person grows older, he would feel more lonely. friends have dwindled for numerous reasons: starting new families, issues that are no longer tolerable now in comparison to years ago, people withdrawing from genuine conversations, and the worst part of all, lack of interests in seeking for new relationships. i think i am starting to turn into "that" person. here i am, in a new town, starting a new life, yet i feel like i don't belong here. well, i should cut myself some slack for i've been here for less than a week. maybe i'm just liking the idea of a "quick fix" -- fast-forwarding to a time in which i've gotten along with everybody at work, in an organization like toastmasters, or maybe the indonesian community here. i know that i can't sit still and be alone. it's good that there's dear roommie around, but i need to find a group of friends too. i can't spend my spare time just chatting with friends online or youtubing for tonight show's funny clips. i think i am just expecting a huge learning curve at work that may distress me, so i choose to be idle and enjoy the nothingness of surfing the net until i realize that i'm bored and i need to get going.

i hope that i will get along with my teammates. heard that most of them are introverted thinkers, let me be the odd one out and be the outspoken thinker. :) (thankfully, as i grow older, i've learned to think before i speak. some things are better left unsaid rather than being out in the open while the situation turns ugly.)
by the way, am liking the weather in manassas. it's not freezing cold and i still can open my window during my drive to work.

wish me luck, guys!