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!

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!

Origami Extreme - Barosaurus by Issei Yoshino

Model: Barosaurus
Designed by Issei Yoshino
Folded by me

I used the same paper that I used for the previous Stegosaurus model. This was for Arwen who likes long-neck dinosaurs.

And like last time, here's the gif of the process:

I hope you like this model as I did. Thank you and see you next time!

An Atypical Thought about Sins and Betrayals

In the NetFlix show Atypical, a mother had an affair, ended it, then was found out. Her children hated and avoided her. Her husband was disgusted by her. At first, he left, but soon after, problems happened at home so he came back for the children but told her to leave. One of their two children, the show’s protagonist, had autism, and when he was told that his mother had cheated on his father, he nonchalantly commented:

- Wow, it’s the first time I met a person who committed adultery.

Adultery is widely considered an unforgivable sin. When we find out our love partner has cheated on us, we end the relationship. We don’t forgive them. That’s what we do. On the seventh holy bullet point, the Lord has commanded, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” And this may very well be the only thing on which people of both sides would agree with each other these days.

Her husband was a paramedic who was mostly out at work. Her teenage daughter tended to do mean and disrespectful things to her just for the sake of it (saying stuff like, “No one needs you, Mom!”). Her autistic other child, the main character, he, well, had autism. It means two things: first, he was not empathetic to her, and if he didn’t need anything from her, he would tell her to go away. Simply no emotional connection. (There may be different kinds of autism, and some autistic people can be empathetic, I’m not arguing.) Secondly (and much more universally), he needed a lot of accommodations. So “her”, the mother, spent most of her time since he was diagnosed accommodating him. Driving him to see the therapists, listening to whatever he had to tell, doing whatever else to tend to his needs. Adding all the typical housework to that list, and you’d have a person without a life. She spent her days serving her family who did a pretty good job showing her that she was not needed.

By no means I am condoning people having affairs. Still a big NO. People who do that should really be ashamed of themselves and it really is their fault. But who doesn’t want to be needed? Who doesn’t want to be thanked, to be affirmed that they matter? And the ruggedly handsome bartender could do just that. So it happened. A family, wrecked. As long expected.

When I saw how she was disgusted and rejected by her husband and children, I wondered, how about their 20-plus years of marriage, how about all the love, the time, the efforts she had put in their lives: ain’t they amount much at all? Do we abandon all of what we and our loved ones have been through together – all of them – because of one big mistake? Should we though?

Countless people have had affairs. I don’t think they are all sex maniacs. Maybe people cheat because within their own families, they have been neglected, unappreciated, and abandoned. If our spouse was to have an affair, would it be possible that we were, collectively, also at fault? In this story I just told, wasn’t it her husband and children who arguably initiated her adultery?

When our loved ones committed a horrible mistake, it’s probably because we didn’t do something right ourselves. We feel betrayed, but maybe we have betrayed them first.

So the message is to not judge others too hastily. Another message is about the lesser-known Bible verse of 1 Corinthians 6:7b:

“Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?”  

Cơ Đốc Tình Nhân (with English Translation)

Bình minh nắng tỏ nhờ ai?

Hoàng hôn thắm đỏ vì ai nên đời?

Lòng ta nhung nhớ một người

Ngày đên khắc khoải rối bời tâm tư.

Muôn người chối bỏ thiên thu

Còn ta chối bỏ thiên thu không người.

Kinh răn: “Kính Chúa, yêu người”

Thành tâm nên lỡ suốt đời yêu em.

Khởi nguồn nên sự thiên duyên

Hồng nhan nhớ mãi khải huyền chưa nguôi.

English (unrhymed) translation:

Christian Lovers

Because of whom is the dawn so bright?

And because of whom the sunset scarlet?

My heart can’t stop thinking about this one person

The obsession is there days and nights, driving me crazy.

Many people have rejected the Eternity

I don’t want an eternity without you.

The Scriptures teach us to “love God, love others”

I obey so I end up loving you forever.

This blessed love was created since the Genesis

And it shall last beyond the Apocalypse.  

Like Kevin on Earth

Do you listen to Christian music radio? What is your favorite station? One day, I was listening to Air-1 while driving, and I heard this song went:


“…till I seek your kingdom first
till I shine shine shine 
like Kevin on earth.”

And there I was thinking, “Kevin on earth”? What is special about this “Kevin” that a worship song gotta mention him? Is there an important Kevin in the Bible whom I cannot recall? After a while I realized, “Ohhh, like heaven on earth!” English is weird.

In my first semester at TTU, I met a Kevin. I didn’t know much about him, except that we were taking a class together and sharing the office. One day, free coffee bottles were handed out on campus. I saw Kevin standing in line, and he ended up taking not just one bottle but the entire cardboard box! I saw that and thought, “Dude, you’re taking too much! That’s greedy! Leave some for the undergrads!” Later on, I went back to my office and realized that he didn’t get all of that coffee for himself: he got them to share with everyone in the office! What a nice guy! And as always, I was quick to misjudge another person.

“Do not judge (like Anh), or you too will be judged.” – Matt. 7:1

Don’t be like me. Be generous and kind like Kevin. Shine like a Kevin on earth.