24 Hours Without the Internet

Right now I am in the process of relocation, and there was a 24-hour gap between checking out of Motel 6 and having a guy from Cox coming over to install the Internet in my new apartment. (The Motel 6 in Oklahoma City has fantastic and free Internet, by the way; it’s far superior to the one in San Jose whose paid Internet service is painfully crappy.) Not having Internet access this long was a challenge to me no doubt, but Challenge Accepted!!!

When facing some hardship, of course the first thing to do is to lament about it. So I stared at my laptop screen and realized how sad Life was without the Internet. More than half of the icons are Internet-based programs. I could care less of what people said on Facebook for 24 hours, but giving up Internet entirely was not fun. I needed to read the news and check emails; I wanted to look at YouTube; I wanted to play video games. They all required Internet connections. Oh how about going out to explore the new city? Let me see what places they have on Google Map… oh wait.

So I read the Bible my today’s portion. I was following the Bible reading plan I found (previously!) online of going through the whole Bible in a year. The first 3 chapters in the book of Ezra were fine, just a lot of names but I’m sure they’re important. Then I jumped to James and read about how humility was important. Being humble is such a tricky topic and maybe I’ll write about it some time.

I prepared lunch, and it wasn’t anything fancy at all. Since I just moved in, I wasn’t really in the mood to cook so it was only something out of a box. But when Arwen asked me what I had, I said, “steak, smashed potatoes, and corns”. Trust me, it wasn’t as good as it sounds.

Luckily, I had input the addresses of a Barnes & Noble in town and a Vietnamese supermarket in my GPS, so I could actually go outside and check those two out. I love bookstores, and if Borders were still around I would go there all the time. Barnes & Noble is larger and even more fun. So I went there and did whatever snow does in the summer… I mean, whatever a nerd does in a bookstore: staring at book titles and feeling happy.

Another place I went to was a Vietnamese supermarket called Super Cao Nguyen. I found it online, and it’s supposed to be the biggest Asian market in town (how cool is that?). It was really fun going in there. They have a large variety of food and spices. They have good meat buns, “xôi” (sticky rice with chicken or pork), “bánh chưng” (Vietnamese new year cake) and many other things! Here are some pictures of what I got:

"Bánh bao" (meat bun)

Xôi gà (sticky rice with grilled chicken thigh)

Bánh chưng (Vietnamese rice cake)

Because this is a Vietnamese store so besides Japanese, Korean, and Chinese stuff, they have many Made-in-Vietnam goods to choose from. Here comes my patriotism! : ) Oh and right next to the supermarket was a pho restaurant called Mr. Phở’s. It is one of the most popular pho restaurants in Oklahoma City! (I didn’t go in because of my habit not to go to a restaurant alone. Maybe I’d go when Arwen comes visit and make a review on that.) But anyway, I got out of Super Cao Nguyen with a lot of froze food and felt super excited (no pun intended!). So I went home.

At one point I watched The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug on my laptop. (Luckily I didn’t need to use Internet for this.) I am still amazed how Hollywood could muster 3 long movies out of a tiny little children’s book. If J. R. R. Tolkien could see this he’d laugh so bad.

And of course there was another thing that I did during this 24-hour period: I wrote this blog post! Now I needed that Internet guy to come and install the thing so that I can post this entry, didn’t I? Hopefully with this new life in Oklahoma City, I would find many things to share and have the time to share them. Please pray for me so that I’d live. 

Are There Friends Who Care?

Where can we find the friends who care?

As someone who has been studying abroad for the last 8 years, I have no family to depend on. Both of my families, they are so far away there is nothing they can do. So in order to survive, I seek friends.

I know what a good friend is, and I try to be the best one possible. I go “above and beyond” in friendships like an enthusiastic entrepreneur going about his business. I am there when people need me, offer helps before they ask, and give nice gifts on occasions (and doing other stuff a friend does to – you get the point).

My best friend in school told me that he’s so sad I had to leave in a week, and then spent that last week traveling away with his boyfriend. My lovely American sister to whom I keep sending nice gifts one day finally asked me for my address, only to mail me a sales catalog from her job.

Sometimes I would go down my phone’s contact list and send people text messages. But there will surely never anyone does that back to me. And letters, too. The only people who would feel like sending me things are State Farm, Papa John, and my sister.

My face cries out for attentions. Hello! Can you care about me too? Love me, please! 

But my eyes see people walk right by. Everyone has their family to whine on, and their American friends to befriend with. Who needs a peculiar and uncivilized foreigner? All of my feelings, concerns, and efforts turn out to be simply unwanted. “It’s so nice of you to do all that, now move along!”

Should I keep it to myself and put on a nice mask? Should I think that the people I have known so far are apathetic and I should keep looking for “better” ones? Or should I stop caring and trying for others because the only problem here is me loving my friends and caring for them so much? Am I too terrible of a person to be loved? The way I see it, Christians are solemnly marching to Heaven in silence. I try to make conversations with some but no one was interested.

Where do you find the friends who care?