...and want to sleep after doing lots of stuff over the weekend

I'm so tired from doing everything but sleep. Lots of readings to do before tomorrow. "only 39 pages from the textbook!" -the Teaching Assistant. Yeah right. Thanks.

Ok quick update of what's been happening so far.

Thursday after I burnt my pot:
-Went to the Christian Students @ UCI meeting and had dinner, sang some songs, and got introduced to their group. Met new people there, these 2 women from China who were there cos one was a Prof's wife and the other's doing her postgrad I think. I had to dust off my rusty Chinese and use it :|

-Met Pa and went back to Simi Valley to visit Uncle Ferdy and Auntie Nida. Filipino food! They gave me a much thicker sleeping bag, a cushion, a bugger and better pot, and a frying pan. Yay! Can cook more things now :) without burning them :)

The oranges are from their own garden.

-Slept overnight at the Hilton Hotel in Costa Mesa so that I could watch TV, although there was nothing on.


Friday:

-Grocery shopping before Papa had to catch his flight home. The place is stocked with meat and veg and milk!

-Amanda's friend Christa dropped by to hang out with us cos she had nothing to do. She's a Filipina in the US Army (like, what's wrong with her right) and is really funny. She gave us a whole bag of Doritos and shortbread so we have snacks for next week! Played Dutch Blitz until she had to go home

Christa, Lois and Amanda with the Dutch Blitz cards.

-Yvette and Ka Ho arrived shortly after Christa left. Cleaned up the roasted chicken from the supermarket. Then played Citadel (I won the first game!) until...

-Debbie called and asked if we wanted to go for her home meeting. Alors, in HALF AN HOUR I had to get ready and cook dinner cos I said I would. Fried pork chops! Lois and Amanda finished most of it.

-Yvette and I went for the meeting which was actually a cell group meeting (from the Church in Irvine. yes that's the name.) with lots of eating and a time of fellowship discussing the material they had been going through on Jacob. The hymns they sang were nice, and the style of praise and worship is really different from what I'm used to, even with all the different churches I've visited. But the thing I took away from it is that it doesn't matter HOW or WHAT is done as long as the people CARE. They were very friendly and tried to include us in their conversations and made us eat ALOT. there was even beancurd from 99 Ranch [chinese supermarket] for dessert!

Saturday:

-visited the Farmers' Market and had a blast trying all the samples and watching the vendors entertain and entice the consumers. There were so many Chinese there it speaking Mandarin it could have been China. It was tough not to just buy everything and anything, cos it all looked so good!

Using Lois as an excuse to photograph the strawberries. These are for Pei Yiing!

-went to Fashion Island after that. 200 stores and I only went to Forever 21 (cheaper than sg), Hollister and Wet Seal. The size of the shops was humongous and they were all having sales! I only got 2 shirts though, cos it was hard finding sizes or the designs were ugly.

A small part of Fashion Island at about 6pm.

-The guys came over and we started planning for our Grand Canyon trip only to realise that it's really far away and very expensive. So I suggested going to the San Diego Zoo instead. Yay! After we decided to check the STA travel out first, we continued playing Citadel. The Warlord must be used!

Citadel!

Sunday:

Went to Church with Prof Jeff and his wife Ruth, and their children Dina and Caleb. The sermon was really good, on 2 Chron 7:14 - "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land." It was about how to to pray humbly, tenaciously and intently, and not to give up! I was pretty inspired by Pastor Rick's testimony of how when he was in college, he took a sheet of paper, stuck it on his wall and divided it into 4 columns:

1. Date requested
2. Item
   
3. Date answered
4. How it was answered

At the end of the term, he had 56 answered prayers, and everyone would go to his room just to check the list out. Inspired to do that now and for my hall room too.

Then we went to the Prof's house for lunch: British pot roast, potatoes and brussel sprouts. Totally rocked! Learnt that the kids play the guitar and bass and american football. At the end of the meal when their parents asked them to clean up, they were arguing and trying to pay each other to clean the kitchen and table. Haha. Sounds familiar.

While they were doing that, the Prof and his wife brought us to the beach so we could see it without the fog. The thing about the weather is that although it's sunny, it isn't humid and scorching hot, and the wind is cool. To quote Sean: it's like having aircon outside. Loved it. Could have stayed there all day with the sun out. Apparently, it's gonna turn cold again :(:(:(

My favourite photo of the sun and the water.

So that was my weekend.