Jung, Pei & Rebecca

Last weekend Pei and I had to go for a immigration medical examination. Perhaps it was my third immigration exam in my life, or perhaps I was just too careless, but I always lose my vaccination card when I move from one country to another.

The nurse’s eyes lighted up when I confessed that I didn’t have the vaccination card with me. When she started enumerating the different shots that I have to get, I knew that I won’t get away without few shots in my arm. Frankly speaking, I totally lost count on how many tetanus shot I’ve had in my 27 years of life, but I’m pretty sure I had more than 3, even though each shot is good for 10 years….

Ironically, the most painful part of the experience was not with the doctor, nor with the nurse, but with the billing secretary. The whole exam plus some shots came with a price tag of more than $500 dollars. Can you believe it? Surely this last procedure will prevent me from losing my vaccination card again, and, who knows, maybe this lesson was far more useful than all the vaccines that I got?

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Question: Why did Jung and Pei buy a paper shredder?

Answer: To shred confidential documents and protect their identity, of course!

…..

WRONG. We bought a paper shredder in order to feed composting worms…. hahaha… You’ll see why in a second.

(Read the article)

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Now that Rebecca is not with us, we have plenty of time to catch some movies at the movie theater. We knew that there is this new movie called “The Guardian” that seemed pretty interesting and decided to watch it without much thought. Well,… maybe we were too spontaneous that day, because we forgot the name of the movie when we arrived at the movie theater. Instead of buying tickets for “The Guardian”, we bought tickets for movie called “The Protector” instead.

Harmless difference, you think? The whole movie revolved around someone like Jackie Chan who lost his elephant – yes, his elephant. This hero is constantly fighting with the street thugs who took away his elephant. I, on the hand, was fighting the movie with one yawn after another. Half an hour into the fight, I realized that this was a lost case: the movie was SO bad that Peipei and I walked out of the theater.

Now I wish I could spoil the movie by telling you how it ends, but I can’t, and I think you can already guess how it ends.

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I had an eye exam yesterday, the first in almost three years. The doctor said that both my eyes and my current reading glasses were in good condition. This was expected since I hardly ever need to use the glasses.

He then looked at my insurance coverage and realized that I am fully covered for the eye exam and a pair of new glasses every 12 months. Even though I didn’t need any glasses, the doctor suggested me to still buy a pair of glasses, sun glasses, to be precise. Of course, it would be a pair of sun glasses “with prescription”, so that I can still claim it to the insurance company.

While there is nothing illegal or unethical about it, this was certainly a cost that could have been avoided from a purely medical point of view. The altruist voice in me said that I should have saved this cost for the sake of common good. The realistic voice in me, on the other hand, said that it doesn’t make any difference: 99% of the people will take advantage of the system anyway.

Now I understand why insurance is so expensive nowadays.

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Today’s sermon was on Daniel chapter 6. It reminded me of a sunday school lesson where we covered the very same topic. While the sunday school teacher was telling us how special Daniel was, a little note was passed around that said:

“Why did Daniel went upstairs to his room, opened his windows and prayed to God three times a day?”

(Read the article)

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Remember that famous law of conservation of mass that we learned in chemistry class? It basically states that, in a closed system, the total mass of the system will remain constant under any chemical reaction.

Well, a similar phenomenon was observed at my mom’s place.

I called my mom today and asked how is Rebecca doing. My mom said that Rebecca has gained two pounds since she went to Montreal. That’s almost 10% increase in weight! In order to maintain the total mass in the system, my mom actually lost 2 pounds….

Of course, that’s probably only 1-2% decrease in mom’s body weight,.. but that’s a whole other story…

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As promised last Saturday, I took Pei to Stanford’s cake store – this time we went there right after lunch, so there’s no chance we’ll miss it.

Since there were many people waiting in line to get the cake, I told Pei to buy one slice of cake while I visited other stores. Well,… this is what she got instead:

How are you going to eat all of this? – I asked

I’ll have only one and will save the rest.

Why?

Because I don’t come here very often. Don’t worry, it’s going to last for a couple days.

Well,… I don’t think we spent a couple of days in the shopping mall, but somehow, the box became empty few hours after we got home.

Strange, huh?

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A co-worker wrote today in an email that I was very “keen. =)” I didn’t know the exact meaning of the word “keen” used in this context, but the smiley face assured me that it must be some benign adjective. Curious as I am, I couldn’t help looking it up on Webster dictionary:

keen ¹ (kn)

Interestingly, the very same word could mean either good or bad personality. For instance, it’s good to be “sharp” and have “intellectual acuity”, but nobody would want to be “pungeant” or “piercing”, right?
I guess word by itself is always neutral. The actual meaning is always chosen by the speaker and the listener. Confusion and misunderstanding arise because you can’t guarantee that both parties will choose the same meaning. No wonder people say that “communication is an art in itself“.

Maybe happy couples are the couples who have mastered this art?

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(written on September 5, 2006)

After two hours of operation, the doctor finally came out from the operating room. “Everything went well” – said the doctor. The little faith inside of me was waiting for the “However,…” from the doctor. But there was no “however”. By God’s grace, Peipei’s surgery went very smoothly. This was certainly a welcoming sentence for someone whose wife just came out of a surgery.

I had about two hours of free time before I could see her. I decided to grab something to eat in the meantime. All this was quite familiar to me since it was our second surgery in a year. I crossed the street for some fast food, wearing the hospital’s white wristband. Then I borrowed some books from the public library nearby for I knew it was going to be a long day.

(Read the article)

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I’m writing from Uncle Tim and Auntie Cristina’s place. I’m really having fun here! I love eating bananas and playing the piano. Here are some pictures of us visiting Lake Louise. This place is really beautiful. Now I know that God must be an artist.

Mom, I hope your surgery will go well and God will send Angel’s to protect you.

Rebecca

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