life lesson

Even though my dad 'lectures' me everytime i see him, and most of it goes in one ear and out the other, one of the things he said to me last time i saw him rings pretty true and i've been giving it a lot of though.

He was saying how we spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping, and 1/3 of our lives working/studying. Those two are intangibles of everyday life, Christian or not. But it's the other 1/3rd that God is going to ask us about. What did we do during the 'other' 1/3 of our lives. So far for me, that 1/3 has been spent majorly on playing video games.

It makes me realize think about all the time I have wasted, and how much time I have left in my life that I need to make better use of.

today

Anyway, onto today's events. Olivia drove me to church. Today was my first time at T3C without family. It was a weird feeling, singing and praying without them there. Yesterday night, they didn't call me, so I was a bit worried since I had asked them to call me every night. I kept praying that they were safe and there was a good explanation behind why they hadn't called. Actually it turned out there just wasn't any reception for my dad's cell phone. Apparently they spent the night somewhere in Nebraska (or in layman terms -- in the middle of nowhere). Today they were already in Utah, which means they should arrive in Nevada sometime tonight, even though they had planned to arrive their tomorrow night. I guess my dad drove REALLY fast..

After service I went with Kev and Char to go grocery shopping at the big No Frills up near PacMall. That place was packed! Kev and I talked about his Altima and how nice it was. It was really spacious, especially in the back. I was pretty impressed with it. We saw a 2003 2.5s too, and that looked even better.. Well, it's bulkier anyway.

I bought a couple of steaks, salad dressing, lettuce, breakfast bars, and a block of cheddar.

introducing: my grandmother

Later on the in the afternoon after I got home, I told my gramma that I would be cooking for myself for dinner. I think she understood (my chinese is pretty poor). But for some reason at 6 she told me it was time to eat, and she had taken out the food and had put rice into my bowl. Again, I stated my case, that I was going to eat later and that I was cooking for myself. She said she already cooked before, and that she had already taken the rice, and that I should eat with them. (For those of you wondering, she's a very stubborn woman).

Again, I told her, I am cooking for myself tonight.. and continued watching TV. At 6:30, again she told me to come eat (they hadn't eaten yet, for some reason they were waiting for me, even though they normally eat at 5:30. So again, I told her I was cooking on my own and that I would start cooking soon, and to just start eating. Finally, they started eating. It's weird that the whole time my grandfather seemed to understand what was going on, but didn't say anything!

At 7, I went to cook my steak and again she told me to come eat. At 7:10 after I'd finished cooking, she again told me to come eat. My bowl was still full of rice. I took my plate and brought it over to the table and started to eat my steak and salad. She motioned to me to eat the other food as well. Again I explained that I was cooking on my own, and that I had told her this 3-4 times and also before she had prepared the food. She was not a happy camper..

They finished eating and did their dishes, and left the food on the table for me to eat, even though I was clearly eating my own food (btw the steak was awesome).

After I finished, I did the dishes, and then did their dishes again (my gramma doesn't believe in soap). Then I went back to watch TV. Then, gramma comes back over to talk to me, as if to lecture me or something, I don't know what. She seemed flustered and asked me if I didn't like her cooking. Well of course I like her cooking I said. I explained to her that I need to cook on my own once in awhile (and I plan to do so in the future as well). I told her it had nothing to do with her cooking, but that I felt I needed the experience of cooking on my own. I'm 25, after all. She wouldn't listen. She insisted that I just didn't like her cooking.

At this point, I started getting angry. I explained to her again, that I had told her that I would be cooking, and then I had to tell her 4 more times, and why didn't she listen to me. Man, I was pretty frustrated, partly because of her, and partly because my chinese was too poor to get my point across. She winded up sulking, putting the food away and mumbling to herself.

I wish that either that she could speak english or that I could speak chinese more fluently. Even though she is a stubborn person, I still think this could have been avoided if we could see eye-to-eye.