Like a Little Child

A five-year-old girl, when seeing her father playing guitar on stage would run up the stage and huge him tightly. She wouldn’t care what the rest of the world think. Nothing is more important to her than her love for her daddy. She just has to show to him how much she loves him. I look at that and think how we as Christians should be more like her: care a bit less about what people may think of our Christian faith, our lifestyle, our actions, and more about our relationship with God. Run to him as fast as we can and show Him our love. Genuinely. Vulnerably. Like a little child to her parent. Wouldn’t that be great?

What's in Your Hand?

A long time ago, these was this 80-year-old guy working for his father-in-law tending to animals. Being an anti-social (or more correctly, “asocial”), he usually hung out by himself in the backyard. One evening, God suddenly appeared before him and said, hey Moses, I want you to be the leader of your people and get them out of Egypt to escape slavery and to live in this awesome land I promised to you guys’ ancestor a while back. So Moses did, after giving all kinds of excuses one could possibly think of.

Why didn’t God come to Moses 40 years earlier, when he was in his prime, fully ready to bring justice and make a difference? Why now, when Moses was already a 80-year old man who liked to give condescending looks to millennials and their silly gadgets? No longer the muscular Egyptian prince, Moses was now a frail old man with nothing but a shepherd’s stick in his hand. So why now?

It’s so easy for us to include God in our own plans. But it’s much more rewarding to put ourselves in God’s plans. God didn’t need the primetime Moses. God called to Moses when He had plans for him, and when that time came, a simple shepherd’s stick was enough. As grad students, we all have different knowledge and skillsets. What matters is whether we are willing to be included in God’s plans, to utilize the different abilities we each have for His sake.

So what’s in your hands?

A Reason for Graduate Students to Have Their Christian Faith

As graduate students, are we proud of our Christian faith? Are we afraid that if our colleagues and our professors find out, we would be ridiculed and belittled? How do we explain our beliefs in this academic world of rationality and scientific methods?

We all have different pasts, but many of us share a similar story: there was this one period in our lives during which we were away from God and lived the way of the world; we may even did embarrassing things! And we didn’t like that. We didn’t like how we were, or what we were becoming as a person. And we came back.

Do you know what that story sounds like? My good friend Kevin pointed out that it’s analogous to conducting an experiment in a controlled environment. Everything was kept the same; we were the same; the one variable factor was God (or more precisely, our acceptance of God. He Himself is ever-constant). We recorded the results, and we drew the conclusion.

What was the reason for my faith, you ask? It was the result of a scientific experiment. We are Christians not because we are dump, irrational, or ignorant. We are Christians because we are utterly science-minded.

Quick Pencil Sketch - Joaquin Phoenix's Joker

Instead of being productive, of course I would get hyped by the new Joker movie and make a sketch on a Friday evening. I guess I ended up drawing something for this year's Inktober after all!

Fighting for $15 Minimum Wage is a Great Idea

People who skip their ECON classes have been fighting for $15 minimum wage, and I never thought it would affect my life in such a positive way.

One fine afternoon, my dear wife suddenly wants some French fries. I have no choice but to drive to a McDonald’s to get her some. The drive-thru is very long – maybe their wives are also craving for fries! – so I decide to park the car and walk in.

Before people start advocating for the $15 minimum wage, life was tough. To order some fries I would be asked by a McDonald’s employee,

“What size for your fries, sir? Small or large?”

“Small, please.” I would say.

“Okay, one small fries. Anything else for today sir?”

“No, thank you.”

“Any drink to go with the fries?”

“No, just the fries. Thank you.”

“Alright. The total for today will be $1.84.”

“Here y…”

“Would you like to donate 10% to St. Charles’ Arbitrary Charity today?”

“Um, no, thank you.” I would answer, trying to imagine what sort of difference would I have contributed with a hefty amount of 84 cents.

But it’s no longer like that. Not today. Not since kind folks around the country start fighting for $15 minimum wage, and large corporations start voicing their supports to the movement, saying how it is a wonderful idea, while slowly replace their staff with self-serving kiosks. Walmart. Target. Panera Bread. McDonald’s. In New York City where $15 minimum wage has been adopted, people are shocked to find food prices rising, WSJ reporting.

I walk into a McDonald’s to buy my wife some French fries. I see a nice computer screen asking me what I want. I quietly press some buttons and pay. Shortly after, someone puts the fries on the counter for me to take, then quickly disappears to the back before I can say thank you. I walk out with my fries. Zero human interaction. Lovin’ it.

How to Fold an Origami Frog that can Jump

This origami frog was taught to me when I was little. I think it was some common knowledge that every Vietnamese child would know. The frog is quite simple to make, and it can jump! These pictures below show how to fold it step-by-step. This post is to fulfill a promise I made.

 I hope these pictures explain themselves well. Please let me know how I should do it differently next time!

Look at the Sky and Love People

In Matthew 5:44-45, Jesus says to His disciples,

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

This passage has recently become my new favorite. In these verses, Jesus tells His disciples, guys, you should love other people, even your enemies. You know why? Not on the basis of the Old Testaments, that is, not necessarily because of something the Scriptures have said, but on objective observations when you look at the sky. The sun which God created, it shines on both the kind and the cruel people. The clouds which God created, they also rain on both the just and the unjust.

What does that even mean? How do the two even connect? Thankfully, Jesus does not leave folks hanging for too long this time. The very next two verses help explaining this.

For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? – Mt. 5:46-47.

What He is saying here is that to love only those who are lovable, who are attractive and friendly to us, is so typical it doesn’t deserve our tweets with a hashtag or even a like. It’s just what everyone does. It’s the human way. The cool way, He is saying, is to also love our enemies, those who are mean to us, who are different from us in perspectives and opinions, that hopeless guy who votes for the other political party. That is God’s way. If we want to be more like God, then this is how we ought to love. This is how to go above and beyond. Don’t believe me? Just look at the sky and use your deductions, Sherlocks!

So, did we choose to love today?

"How to" Celebrate Father's Day in a Meaningful Way

The best way is to shoot down space invaders, obviously!

How to Improve Your Nook for One Dollar

Our house has a nook which we love. We might very well have moved into this house because of this nook. It’s a perfect spot for Arwen to read books, take cat-naps, or to shirk. At some point we notice that the surface has become rather unflattering so I want to do something about it.

This is what I get from Dollar Tree for a hefty amount of $1.00! A scroll of cover with wood pattern.

This is how it looks when spread out. Don’t be discouraged by how wrinkled it looks! Everything is gonna be okay!

This is the difficult part which requires some carefulness. I measure the dimensions of the nook surface as precisely as I can, and map it out on the cover. Then I trim the cover to have the exact shape of the surface. Unfortunately, the cover is not as big as the entire surface so I have to prepare several smaller pieces to put together like a puzzle. (It’s a price for being ghetto!)

It’s now showtime! I carefully peel the back of the cover and apply it onto the surface. In this picture below, 2 pieces have been applied and everything is going well. The weather seems nice outside too.

And here is the end result! The pieces stay together very snugly. The transitions between the pieces are not at all noticeable unless I deliberately look for them. No gaps and everything.

We are overall very happy with how it turns out. All of that for $1.00! Thank you for reading. I hope you’d find this helpful!

My Company's Values

Thank you, A-ron, for your help with this post.

One day, at the monthly meeting of the company I was working for, the CEO owner told all employees to write down what he/she would consider the most important thing in life, and text message it anonymously to this one number. The app would gather all of the responses and build a “word cloud”, and the company would base on that results to form the company’s core values. Below was what we got:

“God” was the most common answer, and “family” came second. If you look closely, you can see that the “God” response can arguably be a lot more significant, since there are other similar answers such as “church”, “faith”, and “hod” (which is a typo in case you’re wondering – “g” and “h” is next to each other). So I thought that was really interesting (while comforting): what on earth was the company gonna do about this kind of response? Were we gonna have morning praying times? Would there be weekly Bible studies, company-wide? Considering how non-religious the CEO owner happened to be, I was curious of what we would decide to do.

Later on, it was revealed to us that the company’s core values would now be: Passion; Loyalty; Pride; Integrity; and Trust. Well, that was a lot more generic and politically correct than, say, “God-centered” or “religious”. The 5 chosen values seem like something out of a business textbook, or something an owner would want their employees to go with. That’s why, to be honest, these core values might have had been decided way before we had that company meeting when us employees were bestowed the false sense of democracy. I might be wrong, but I was rather disappointed. A false sense of democracy is so depressing when it’s seen through.

How to Make Fried Rice

I don’t really cook. As I have mentioned before in my previous posts, during the years I lived by myself, I invented “dishes” to cook for myself. Among them, my fried rice is among the successful few, something that I can actually let other people eat. Arwen actually craves for it at times. This post is about how I make it.

The ingredients:

- Eggs (I love eggs!)
- Hot dogs.
- A small bag of frozen veggies.
- Leftover rice (not in the picture).
- Whatever leftover meat/food that you may have (optional). Here I have some ground beef from the burritos last night.
- Soy sauce.
- Cooking oil.
- Pepper.

Step 1: Dice hot dogs into little cubes. I try to make them the similar size of the diced carrot in the frozen veggies bag.

Step 2: Heat the oil. About 2 spoons is enough. The hot dogs will produce extra grease. (What “spoon”, you ask? The one you eat with, of course!)

Step 3: Fry the hot dogs. So I don’t like raw meat. Packaged hot dogs are debatably cooked but I don’t like their texture right out of the bag so I fry them up until the color turns darker and the shape somewhat distorted.

Step 4: Add the veggies. Stir them up with the hot dog cubes so they become slightly cooked and mixed well with the hot dogs.

Step 5: Add whatever else meat/food. Do the same as step 4: mix them up good.

Step 6: It’s time to add the rice! The rice portion is roughly the same as the amount of what you now have in your pan/wok.

Step 7: You guessed it! It’s mixing time, again! Stir fry everything together until they are well-mixed.

Step 8: Congratulations, you finally get to use the only raw ingredient we have: the eggs. Crack several eggs and throw them into the mix. I would use 2 eggs per person. Feel free to add more or less to your liking. Egg is love, egg is life, though!

And once again, it’s mixing time! You will mix until the eggs are cooked nicely among other ingredients.

Step 9: Add soy sauce. This part is tricky because I don’t really measure how much I put it in. Basically a good dash at each area and then mix it up well so the soy sauce would blend well with the rice and change the color to light brown.

Step 10: Add pepper for flavor. The effect is negligible unless you accidentally drop the whole jar into the pan. So be careful.

And we are done! It’s time to serve and enjoy!