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| hi friends!
soooo it has been like 50 years since i have last updated. a lot has happened since my first day of dental school. let's see. a semester in review. lots of studying. pretty much felt bad anytime i was not studying. made some new friends. including a short persian and a tall chinese girl. i had a crazy time in gross anatomy. i had the best tank ever. we named our cadaver uncle fester. but too bad she was really a woman!
other things that have happened. started driving on the highway, started drinking coffee, and started living at home. and having the awesome privilege of having my parents take care of me thru food, laundry, and gas. thanks mom and dad!
other things that have happened. happy birthday to tk, daryl, andy, joe, dsun, achan, and my nephews jack and cade. happy graduation to koller, chibong, achan, and andy. and happy you are a real person now to tina, cwan, peter, joe, and daryl.
travels have included the smu library, starbucks, austin for thanksgiving break, panda's musical of wemmicks, dental gayla, december graduations via a paper cut out via janie, and austin again right now. future travels for the semester include houston tom and oregon for skiing for team usa ski extravaganza turbo extreme part II.
things to look forward to next semester. more school to learn more about all of the bumps and grooves in teeth. and gingivitis. mission trip to mexico over spring break with the dental club. learning more about music from the yips: cherilyn and benry. and learning how to drive better for the safety of future passengers and other drivers. and learn how to be more like money bags joe tsai.
merry christmas and have a happy new year full of happiness, joy, and jesus. thanks.
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| two weekends ago was birthday extravaganzaa weekend in austin! first, finally got rid of the big, red brick/ remote control phone thanks to a new, really cool phone from friends!
then, celebrated cherilyn's bday at sushi sake and karaoke!
then, helped trish with her classroom. then, iguana grill to celebrate my birthday! it had an amazing sunset!
this weekend, alicia and ed got married! the ceremony was flawless and beautiful. me and trish were really worried about the toast, but i think it ended up ok. thanks for giving us some pointers, peter! and even though i am a crying machine now, i held back my happy tears.
and i just finished my first day of being a grown up as karen likes to say it. my first day of dental school. i had dental anatomy today and got to write my name in wax. pretty exciting. but what a tease as the real stuff starts tomorrow with cell bio, biochem, and histology. my mom wrote me a good luck note on my napkin for lunch, and here is a picture my dad took of me this morning.
one day down and 98741082741928374 days left to go until may 2010.
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| best early birthday ever!
 
thanks friends!
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| so before i left bolivia, my team leader said that when we got back to
the states, people would be like, "how was your trip?" and then we's
say "awesome." but awesome describes laundry detergent. he told us that
we need to tell stories. so here it goes.
the first night in bolivia, we held a service in a man named miguel's
frontyard. even though i was standing there in a foreign country under
a tree with 2 lightbulbs and listening to perfect strangers singing
praises to God in spanish, i was experiencing pure joy. i could have
easily been sitting on my butt, on the couch, in my living room.
however, God placed me in bolivia. God made me realize that He doesnt
need us to go and evangelize for Him. God could easily do it Himself.
however, God allows us to be a part of the great commission and blesses
us with the joy of experiencing people coming to Christ.
from a large team of 42 people from all over the states, i got to work
with one 40 year old dad and a 15 year old 10th grader. we partnered
with pastor pedro and 3 university student translators. at first i
thought that 8 days was not long enough for a mission trip, but i was
exhausted after church planting and evangelizing in the morning,
afternoon, and having service at night. at night, i got to minister to
children. my favorite. by the end of the week, we had about 50 children
and we would act out bible stories for them.
pastor pedro was a taxi driver by day and a pastor by night because the
church doesnt have enough money to support him and his family. we would
fit 8 people into this little corolla where the speedometer always said
0 and the gas gauge was always on E. somehow we would be able to drive
about 25 minutes outside of the city to our town using a propane tank.
just like a crwfish boil!
other stories: evangelized to a blind grandma, drank green soda, ate a
really hot pepper where i almost died, evangelized to a guy that makes
the grass grow, took a picture with a brazilian model, got to use some
nasty toilets, over 1600 people came to Christ, and God became more
famous in bolivia
translator pamela, me, and children we shared gospel bracelets with
church on sunday
my roommate melissa and me in the center of santa cruz
translator koco, lyndsey/lorenzo, phillip/felipe, pamela, translator lizzie, me, & pastor pedro
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| just got back from cancun last night. and it was amazing! pretty relaxing and chill with lots of really blue water that looked fake and really soft sand better than previous beaches i have been to like galveston's beach of dirt and rocks. spent most of the time eating, reading magazines, building sand sculptures, looking for sand dollars, napping, getting sun burned, and watching movies in spanish.
and the most exciting thing we did was PARASAILING!!! i was so freakin scared, even before we got to the speedboat. man, i am all talk. but in the end, it was really fun, and we saw all of cancun and end of the earth. shoutout to tina for persuading me to go and for putting up with my whining about wanting to get my money back.
shoutout to trish for planning this trip and checking every comment on trip advisor for the best hotel. thanks for this amazing graduation gift!
the highlight tour:
our hotel.
me and tina chillaxing on the beach.
trish chillaxing on the beach.
tina and me getting hit by the waves.
i made trish's face out of sand and seaweed.
me and tina parasailing. sorry it is kinda small. we were just that high up.
haha. i dont know how to rotate this thing. but this is me getting my hair braided. no cornrows. sorry, koller.
tina and trish painting some pottery.
my poor man attempt to make a nice cwan picture of the view from our balcony.
goodbye, cancun! | | |
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