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.

My Grey Hound "Tragedy"

I saw waiting at the bus stop in Lawrence, KS, for a Grey Hound bus to get back to OKC to my dear wife. It had taken me 30 minutes to find this “bus stop” because “707 Vermont st.” was NOT a bus station: it was Lawrence Public Library. The place for the buses to stop was across the street from the library where we could see the bus stop signs and the benches for people to sit and wait. The Grey Hound bus was supposed to arrive at 2 PM, but it was delayed until 3:30. So I sat there and waited. I would have no problem waiting for a couple hours: I had my Kindle Fire, my sketch book, and my bottle of water. Little did I know, it wasn’t gonna be just “a couple hours”.

(Some sketches I made while waiting for the bus.)

The GH bus kept being delayed. Every time I checked their website, the expected arrival time would go a bit further out. So I waited and waited. Eventually, I got bored of reading and sketching people walking by. I wanted the wait to be over with.

The bus finally left Kansas City at 5 PM instead of at 1 PM like scheduled, and it would get to Lawrence at 5:40. I was filled with joy. I would finally get to go home!

At 5:40, at lot of buses came to the stop, but none of them were Grey Hound. I tried to make sure I wasn’t missing it because of the other buses blocking my view.

And then I saw the Grey Hound bus, not stopping but driving by. Not driving by Vermont street but the street intersecting with it. And it never turned around to stop at the bus stop. Puzzled, I asked a bus driver of one of the city buses, and he said that the GH buses didn’t stop there. They stopped at another spot around the corner. In another word, the bus didn’t stop at its street address; it stopped at a spot which was hidden from the actual address where the other bus stops were located. After four hours of waiting, I had now missed it.

The sad feeling was too much. There wouldn’t be another bus until the next morning. Lawrence to OKC was about a 5-hour drive. Using a cab would cost me $500 – 600. My wife wanted to come pick me up, and she was 7-month pregnant. I didn’t know what to do or what to think. Having a self-victimized-worthy life, I couldn’t help but felt so sorry for myself. I wanted to cry though no tears came out. I turned to God and shouted,

“Oh God! Why?!”

“Will you please help me?!”

“But of course you won’t. I can’t expect the GH bus to miraculously come back. Of course you won’t.”

Atheists believe that things happen because they simply do, by chances and without meanings or purposes. As a non-atheist, I tend to do the opposite: to expect a reason or a goal to all occurrences. Because God knows a lot more than me. Because He knows what’s best.

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” - C.S. Lewis.

I needed to calm down and think. If this misfortune was somehow purposefully the “best”, what was I to think and to do in this situation? Then I remember this quote:

“One of the best questions you can ask when something negative happens is this: ‘What does this experience make possible?’” – Hyatt & Harkavy, Living Forward, p. 513.

Here are some of the things I could think of:

- My wife really wanted to come pick me up. If she started at 7 PM, she would get to me at midnight, and we would be back in OKC around 5 AM. That would not be a good idea. Not talking about the $12 toll fee for each direction, the gas, the damage to our car for driving 10 hours straight. If anything went wrong with my wife and her 7-month pregnancy, that would be the absolute worst, the point of no return, something to never recover from. Therefore, even though this was what we were impulsive to do the most, it was actually the one path we ought not take.

- I personally knew of someone who had cancer and had several years left. But while everyone around him was sorrowful and hopeless, he stayed strong and comforted people, telling them that God was going to take care of everything. Someone who had many years of life taken from him could still have peace and courage; what was I being depressed for when I has merely a day wasted?

- My estranged brother was in Lawrence. I could ask to stay with him for the night and take the morning bus the next day. It would be a rare opportunity to spend time with him. I would have to buy another ticket but so what? $77 was nothing if I took into account the toll fees, the gas money, and having to drive our car for 10 hours straight. This was clearly the best option among all.

I no longer felt sad. A cool wind blew by and I was comforted. I realized that God had started helping me for this event the day He gave me my wife who had been with me on the phone this whole time. He helped me to not be in OKC at midnight were I to not miss the bus. He provided me an opportunity to be with my little brother for an evening. He gave me the ability to go through this event not just unscathed but stronger and braver. He just did not help me by doing the particular thing I came up with using my limited mind (turning the bus around). God had started helping me long before I ever thought of going to Lawrence, and His help was abundant. My hatred toward Grey Hound was replaced with content and thankfulness.

My brother was surprised and happy to have me with him for the night. He made me breakfast and prepared me a jelly and peanut butter sandwich for lunch. I had a restful sleep and woke up at 5 AM like a champ. The morning bus arrived on time, and this time I knew exactly where to expect it.

And this was the end of the story. Here are some lessons I learned/was reminded of:

- Calmly assess the situation. It’s already not good but we don’t want to make it worse. And we have the tendency to jump to the worst decision and make it more disastrous.

- We tend to picture how God could help us and feel so disappointed He doesn’t do that exact thing. This kind of expectation would prevent us from comprehending His true help. It’s pretty much the best way to generate doubts and resentments toward God.

- Broadening the vision can help. Adjusting our perspective to a larger scale. Often in the grand scheme of things, this particular setback is puny and insignificant.

- Misfortunes can be, or can be made into, fortunes in disguise. I now have a good story to tell, don’t I?

Arwen's Vietnamese Egg Rolls

Vietnamese egg rolls are different from Chinese egg rolls in two things: the wraps and the fillings (so basically everything!). Arwen makes wonderful egg rolls so I want to show them off to the world.

The raw ingredients:

Ingredients are mixed and separated into smaller portions:

Start wrapping them into rolls:

Paper towels are prepared to put the fried egg rolls in to absorb the excess oil:

Frying time! This is pretty much the only step I can help with (I love frying food):

The fried ones are put in the paper towels:

A tray full of yummy egg rolls!

I prepare some random shrimp chips so get myself some sense of accomplishment:

The egg rolls and the chips look great together though:

And that is that. I hope you enjoy the pictures! I feel so hungry posting them!

How to Prepare a Low-Budget Wedding Altar

For our wedding, my wife and I decided to have the simplest, smallest one we could possibly get. So I tried to decorate the altar myself. If you are someone who is un-crafty and low-budgeted, this post would be a good reference.

Step 1: Scouting

I always want to make sure of what I have to work with, and the ideas will have to be built upon that. Our ceremony is at a park and out spot looks like this:

At this point, I have to figure out where exactly the groom, the bride, and the minister are going to stand, and also which path the bride will be walking.

Tips:

• Because we do it outside, I have to think of plan B which it will rain.
• After figure out what path the bride will be walking on, I literally walk on it at the leisure speed and time myself so that the music’ length can be appropriately adjusted. (Her walk was 50 seconds by the way).
• For the longest of time, the park was empty but our wedding took place during the Pokemon Go hype, so we had many weirdos wandering everywhere catching pokemons which was unexpected. Luckily we had some scary-looking guest who prevented any intrusion.

Step 2: Designing/Sketching

First I sketch roughly the altar to figure out what sort of things I want to do with the spot.

Now I measure all necessary dimensions and write it down on my sketch. This would be a very good reference for me as I won’t have to keep coming back to the park to double check something.

Deciding what decors to go with can be time consuming. I google quite a bit to see what an altar looks like, what I want and can do to achieve my vision the closest.

Now that I have what I need in mind, I go shopping. (It’s actually not that bad!)

Step 3: Shopping

My rough list:

• Some wooden sticks
• Some crafting strings 
• Some crafting paper sheets in different colors
• A lot of tiny flowers
• Some bundles of flowers
• Rose petals for the bride’s walking path
• Stuff like tape measure, hot glue, a pencil, etc.

Hobby Lobby has most of what I need, but they carry good-quality but therefore pricier stuff. I got the plywood and the strings there. The flowers and the construction paper sheets I got from Walmart. I got 2 bags of rose petals from Dollar Tree for $1.00 each. They are perfectly good to be stepped on.

Step 4: Preparing

First I use the construction paper to fold cranes and hearts. You want to use the colorful ones that mirror the flowers. So no black or brown or grey. If you cannot find Origami instructions for cranes and hearts, you certainly can cut the sheets into shapes – whatever shapes you like! The sizes need to be somewhat consistent, however.

I want the cranes and hearts to spread out evenly so I “map” them all out on a piece of paper.

Now I link them together and to the sticks by strings and make them stick with hot glue. When I’m done, I hang them up and wait for the glue to dry. It doesn’t take much time to dry at all.

Step 5: Putting up Decors

Since the altar is outside, I cannot put up the decors until right before the ceremony. You’ll want to set out 45-60 minutes for this activity in case something comes up you would have time to react.

Results

Things go together quite nicely! Unfortunately I didn’t have time to take any picture of the finished altar :( Bummer! Here are a couple pictures during the ceremony so you’ll have some idea.

Though it was low-budgeted and simplistic, our wedding was still so blessed and she still said “I do” so I’d say Mission Accomplished. By sharing this humble experience, we sincerely that it would help new couples on their altar-preparing endeavor no matter what kind of resources are available. After all, what’s in the heart that counts.

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. 

A Story on Sunday

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” - Exod 20:8 (NIV)

It was another Sunday, and I was at church when I learned that our study group will discontinue by the end of the month. That’s too bad since it was hard to find a good Bible study group and I really enjoyed this class. “Oh well, what can I do?” - I said.

Then after the service, Arwen felt hungry and she was a bit grumpy and I wasn’t very happy about it. Why do we tend to be unhappy on Sundays?

While driving home, I decided that if the day was crappy, what I could do was to get many things done. I washed the dishes, and right after lunch I started doing laundry. After all, by the end of the day, maybe I would feel better with myself being productive.

The snow just now melted, leaving the soil in front of the laundry place soggy and wet. As I was carrying the huge laundry basket I stepped on this soil and it felt like quicksand. I quickly stepped back but it was too late: my proud Nike shoes got all the dirt they could take. Great, now the car became dirty when I got in, and the apartment also got dirty when I came inside. At least I didn’t drop the laundry.

Then I drove to the laundry place again to put the clothes into the dryer. When I came out of the car my little ice shovel scratched my leg it hurt so bad. I wanted to cry.

But it was Sunday, and my duty as a Christian was to try to be positive. So I braced myself out of the house one more time to get the laundry which should now be dried. I just needed to get the laundry, then maybe I could take Arwen to the local antique shop called “Those Were The Days”. She wanted to go there, so we might have some fun and be happy.

I turned my car key, and the engine sounded extra-loudly and there were strange noises. I decided to turn it off. And here the showdown happened. I took the key out of the ignition the machine did not stop(!). I tried opening the hood and saw some belt still spinning really hard. I did not know what to do. I thought of calling 9-1-1 but it might be too late. The car might explode right there and I might not survive. So I dashed to the neighbor next door for help. While I was knocking the car stopped.

So at least it did not explode. I tried to get in and turn it on, but nothing at all happened. No clicking sound. No light turning on. Nothing. The car is as dead as soup. It was all too quiet.

I had to walk to carry the laundry home. And I couldn’t take Arwen to “Those Were The Days”.

So my question was: I was just trying to do chores, why all of this had to happen to me?

Site note: This story happened 2 weeks ago, and up until now we still haven’t found another car to buy yet. The weather is cold, and walking to class is tough, which makes it altogether more unfortunate. 

A Christmas Week In Montana

You may have noticed that there was no post last week. It’s because Arwen and I went to Montana visiting my family for a week. The week went by really fast and now I want to look back and see what we did during that week. I haven’t done diary-style posts like this for quite a while so click on! There are pictures too!

Day 1, Wednesday

We flew the whole day. At first it was nice and Arwen thought her snacks were interesting enough and took a picture of it.

Then it got really boring and tiring, so we decided to take some funky pictures together. Here are some:

After 7 hours, we arrived at Bozeman, MT at 8 PM. Howdy, MONTANA!

Then Mom came pick us up. Then us being tired and sleep.

Day 2, Thursday

The second day was a shopping day, since we didn’t finish our Christmas shopping yet. My brother Holden drove us to three different stores then we had lunch at Burger King. Good time.

Then we went to Petra Academy, my high school, which was now much different: huge building, many more students and teachers, and there was a new huge gym.

Arwen liked the dog Remington very much, so she took many pictures of him. Here is one:

  

In the evening we went to watch The Hobbit pt.1. Three hours was a bit too long for one third of a mid-size novel, but oh well. The character of Bilbo Baggins was quite likable, and the Dwarven prince was majestically heroic. Saruman’s straight hair went so well with his mushy beard (sarcasm!), and Gandalf looked somewhat older than his 60-year-later counterpart. Arwen had hard time staying awake but it’s all good.

Day 3, Friday

I spent a rather peaceful morning reading The Hunger Games and finished it. A cat liked to seat between me and the book but I didn't mind much.

Meanwhile, Arwen prepared a dinner with Vietnamese style chicken curry, a specialty of hers. It was pretty well-received. Too bad there was no picture taken. Next time she makes this dish, I promise I will take some pictures and share.

After the dinner, we went to church to see my little sister Shadiah performing in a Christmas concert. It was nice. Then we went home and I was surprised to find out Shadiah played Star Craft II! So I played some games with her and it was really fun. Ah, she reminded me of myself 10 years ago!

Day 4, Saturday

It was the time for us to finish wrapping gifts and cards, so we did that. We also went outside and enjoyed the snow.

Chelsea, my twin sister was home that evening so it was exciting. We had a nice Italian dinner with a family living downstairs. Afterwards, we watched Ice Age 4 together. It was very well-made and I enjoyed it truly.

Day 5, Sunday

It’s a church day! I missed this church for a long time. I could still recognize some people though they seemed to not knowing who I was. Then we went home and made an Indian lunch with some family’s friends. Then Mr. Brian went home and we all drove straight to Lewistown. The day was very fast-paced like that.

Day 6, Monday

Christmas Eve! It’s Christmas Eve! And there was baby Eaton – the child of sister Paige. He was so cute! Dinner was with lamb and pork. I found out I didn't like lamb much.

Gifts were distributed by the end of the day. Arwen had all the chocolate she wanted and a very nice cook book from Chelsea! Yeah! Merry Christmas!

Day 7, Tuesday

It’s time to drive back to Bozeman. Then Holden, Shadiah, and Chelsea went to see La Miserables whereas Arwen and I stayed home and played Phase 10 with the parents. We lost, but it was fun!

Then of course, we packed our stuffs and went to bed.

Day 8, Wednesday again

The flight was early, so we woke up at 4:30 AM! Holden sleeptalked and sleephugged me before falling back to sleep. Good bye, family, and off we went! At the airport, BTW, Arwen tried to catch some fish.

And that concluded our week in Montana! We did so many things, did we not!