Jun is one-year-and-one-months old. Nate is nine-months old.
It was funny to see Jun crawling in solidarity with Nate, who still mainly got around by crawling. Jun walked way faster than he crawled now.

Click on the pictures to access the large, uncropped, printable pictures.



Jun: "They're taking pictures of us. Quick, pose!"
Nate: *Lion King pose*

( Nine more pictures )

Y HALLO THAR. *plays with sock*

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FYI he's wearing a diaper under his training pants. Which explains that bulge :-P

Happy birthday, Uncle Thomas!

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Note: These was taken on December 7, 2008. It was his second week eating solids. I was feeding him oatmeal cereal when he grabbed the spoon midway and started chewing on it *g*

Baby name update ;-)

Zachiel

Origin: Hebrew, means "the righteousness of God."

Jun = 顺

("Shun" in Chinese)
Meaning: obey, order, smoothly/successfully/without difficulty.

I changed the kanji from 純 (chun) because that's too pure-hearted and naive especially in combination with "Zachiel." 顺 is also Hansel's Chinese name.

Ong = 王 = Wang

Chinese meaning: King
Husband's last name =), pronounced the Hokkien way.

My Mom suggested 王純爵 (Wang Chun Jue) for his Chinese name. Pure-hearted knight...it's like naming him "Gallahad." Poor kid, hahaha. I've always found Gallahad boring. I suppose Tristan or Lancelot would be worse.

---

We just went for our monthly pre-natal check-up last Thursday. Everything's going right on schedule. The baby's heartbeat was 140 beats per minute :-)

Last President's Day weekend, I went on my yearly pilgrimage to Powell's Bookstore and bought "My Baby Book" (based on Guess How Much I Love You). I spent $80+ for two big bags of children's books...and $30 for 10 volumes of the manga Aka-chan to Boku (Baby and I). I suspect if I live near Powells I would browse their shelves daily. And possibly forget to eat lunch and dinner.

Link seen at my friends' page.

"Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies"
Posted on: Wednesday, February 13, 2008
By Dan Nakaso, The Honolulu Advertiser.

---

Whoever will be the new president, they better fix this situation.

Back in 2004, a USCIS immigration officer who interviewed me for my permanent residency told me that at first they expected the reshuffling of USCIS (formerly INS) under the Department of Homeland Security to mean more staff and increased budget. It didn't happen. They have the same amount of staff, but they were expected to process twice as much paperwork.

Is it a wonder that my citizenship application is still pending, eight months after I submitted it?
I am currently waiting for the FBI name clearance before USCIS will send me a letter telling me when my citizenship interview will be. I'm a little concerned because I had written a number of articles on the U.S. government when I was a college student. The articles were not anti-America, but then again the government criteria of suspicious behavior are very sketchy at best.

Exhibit #1. My friend is an Indonesian male with a Muslim-sounding name. He's a Chinese descendant and a Christian, but like many other Chinese Indonesians, he has a typical Indonesian name due to the anti-communism/anti-Chinese sentiment prevalent in the 1960s.

Just because his profile fit certain parameters, FBI agents came in an undercover car to interview him at his workplace. Thankfully he had the full support of his employer; his boss sat in the room with an immigration lawyer. The FBI agents were a bit taken aback at the hostile reception. Heh.

Questions that were asked (randomly from a list of 100+ Qs):
"Did you know about 9/11?"
"Did you know about 9/11 before it happened?"

Exhibit #2. An American citizen was rejected over and over whenever he applied for a government position. He later found out that the FBI has a file on him; when he was a child, as part of a school project he sent letters to various countries using his father's letterhead. His father was a biochemist.

Exhibit #3. Indonesians with Western/Christian names go through U.S. custom easily. Indonesians with Muslim-sounding names always get checked thoroughly. Even if they have a green card. My father-in-law always took longer going through U.S. custom because his name sounded Muslim (He's a Chinese Buddhist).

*sighs*

(Seen all over)

Remember the time...?

If you read this (even if we don't speak often), please post a comment with a completely made up and fictional memory of you and me. It can be anything you want - good or bad - but it has to be fake. When you're finished, post this little paragraph in your journal and be surprised (or mortified) about what people don't actually remember about you.

(Or I'll write a fictional memory of you and me as a reply to your comment here if you prefer that.)

Example: Remember that one time, when we see these two brothers at P.F. Chang, and we keep staring at them because they look so much like Ryan and Seth from The O.C.? The blond boy is definitely cuter than the actor who plays Ryan though.

Did you still have that picture of them you took with your cell phone?

I have a cold, and my electric kettle is broken, so I have to boil water to drink.

*mopes*

On the good news front:

Fortunately, even a bad cold wouldn't hurt your baby, though you may feel miserable, uncomfortable, and eager for relief.
--What to Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Eisen Murkoff, p. 450

That's right, I'm pregnant. Almost thirteen weeks now :-D





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Have any favorite baby names to share?

I hate the CASAS test with the strength of a thousand sun. Test creators should be required to have teaching experience of the subject matter ~_~

Anyway, below are tables of numbers and money that I made, in case anyone finds it useful for teaching. Just copy and paste to Word and change the font.

( Numbers )

( U.S. money )

(Excerpts)

1. Please share any other on-site service activities you have done that that you would like to expand on.

( ESL )
( Job Readiness Training )
( Citizenship class )

4. Please describe any challenges you have encountered during this quarter. If you have resolved them, please describe how. If you have not resolved them, please suggest how they may be resolved.

The biggest challenge in this agency is meeting the community’s various needs with the limited resources we have. Dozens of students want to attend our ESL class but we haven’t had the space to offer them. Hopefully this will be resolved quickly when we open a second ESL class. After we exhaust our waiting list, we will recruit more students by distributing flyers.

5. There are many great things that have happened as a result of your service. Please share one or two great stories from the past quarter.

Just this morning I was thinking that the U.S. president shouldn’t have hard-to-pronounce names. Coaching a Vietnamese speaker to say “George W. Bush” resulted in an approximation of “John W. Buhd.” After several tries, the woman (71 y.o.) pronounced it “Joje W. Bushy” which I proclaimed good enough. At least for now.
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PRESS RELEASE
2 January 2007

For immediate release

Contacts:
Carina A. del Rosario, Communications Coordinator, 206-774-2403 or carinad@acrs.org
Gary Tang, ACRS Aging and Adult Services Director, 206-695-7526 or garyt@acrs.org

Asian Counseling and Referral Service Food Bank Burglarized Twice during Holidays
http://www.acrs.org/eventsNews/pr/FoodBankBurglary.htm

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I wonder if this is part of why I'm enjoying my Americorps service so much ;-)
Just yesterday I was passionately defending my "service" to my pastor, who was convinced that paying only the Federal minimum wage does not comply with state laws.

Underlines added by me.

Wikipedia article

( Cognitive Dissonance )

"My Dad is crazy. I don't take any responsibilites for him," a woman told the bus driver in a loud voice this afternoon. I was sitting a few rows back, and I could hear their conversation clearly.

A man in his seventies, slightly bowed, got on and paid the bus driver.

"He thinks he's going to the U-District. You have to tell him to get off the bus," the disembodied voice continued.

The father simply said in Mandarin, "Don't speak of it again."

"Does he know where he's going?" The bus driver asked the woman.

"Seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three," the father recited the bus route numbers lucidly in English.

"Okay, go!" The woman sounded slightly disgusted.

The bus doors closed, and the man sighed deeply.

A few bus stops later, I approached him and asked in Mandarin if he knew where he should get off.

I asked the bus driver, who then indicated the bus stop he should take.

I got off at the same bus stop and made sure once again that his destination was the U-District.

He then thanked me warmly for the third or fourth time.

( Some children just don't deserve their parents )

The Purpose of this LiveJournal

I've had this journal for years, but haven't found much use for it until recently. This October I started my year of Literacy Americorps service at Asian Counseling and Referral Service, and this journal would work wonderfully to track my experiences throughout the year. If you live in Washington state, you might be interested in volunteering opportunities posted here.

Additionally, I plan to compile various articles I have written and will write on the Internet. My writing range from journalistic articles, movie and book reviews, how-to articles, recipes and theological musings. I might also post original fiction in the future.

Interesting links that I encounter will be posted here. This journal will only have memes that I find meaningful (i.e., not spam about my favorite pizza toppings).

Being not naturally an introspective person, I hope that this journal will help me reflect on my personal growth in academic, career and other areas of my life.

I am conscientious about using proper grammar and spelling when writing. I am not an opinion writer so I cannot imagine how my writing might be offensive. If/when I post materials that might be offensive, I will include a warning label.

( Friending Policy )

( About Me )