Have you entered a situation where you weren't prepared for? Sure you have, and I hate it when it happens to me because I like to be as well prepared about things as possible. God continues to teach me, how He is in control of things. I'm thankful for what He did today despite my early bummness about it. Anyways, I got lots to pray and praise tonight so I wanna do it before I go to sleep.

If You Believe

Wow, it's been a while since I've last blogged. I've had some time the past week, really talking to God and wondering how He is using me or others. Even today's worship sermon, gosh that really spoke out to me. Well it frustrated me that I was 10 minutes late to service and as soon as I sat down, I felt so sleepy. But as soon as GrandPastor B, preached His Word I was just left in awe.

I believe this all started that Special Prayer Meeting for Team Taiwan. After that prayer meeting, I was bummed that I did not get to go to be a part of it. Although, I understand that God chose me to stay because there are still plenty of people to spread the Gospel to. He has put many people in my life currently, who've been inquiring bout my faith. Like GP B said last week I believe this is the easiest time to share the Gospel. I've been praying really hard for these people. It was even a challenge as B mentioned about using Bible verses and add them into our own personal testimony. I'm also thankful to Him, because He does not need me to evangelize but yet I am in this position. I just gotta remember that all things are done in His strength.

Also, if ya go to Stef D's link, you can see my kids. I love Lil' G, who is the one grabbing his chicken in the music pic, with the red shirt on the lower left.

Dare You To Move

Wow, what a day at work as we had a field trip to MSU. To make a long story short, all you saw was an explosion between myself and my boss. The worst part about it was that it was in front of the camp. It sucked even more that we are both believers and many people around us know our faith. The arguement got so far that our secretary had to pull my boss away from the bickering. I was upset for the rest of the day and it was nice of my kids to show their sympathy for me and understanding my point of view. I thought it was gonna be a sucky day but it was nice that the counselors also agreed with me too. I'm glad we all went out to Popeyes after work in the D to chill and hangout for 3 hours. I definitely needed it and glad that for the most part my boss and I worked out things after.
 
The best part about this field trip was this girl came up to me and asked me where I went to high school. It was Jill Brundriks, one of the smartest girls in our class at least in my opinion and one of the kindest too. I'm glad to hear that she is getting married soon and hopefully we'll keep in touch. We had french class together and of course she remembers me as the goof off in class. I still have the Christmas present she got for me back in my sophmore year.
 
Back to the whole drama with my boss and I, I know one of my probs is submitting to authority. At the same time, I believe that we should challenge those above us in the heirarchy system if something does not seem right. It's like if my boss told me to jump off a bridge, then am I going to do it? I'm glad to hear that my kids, counselors, and even our higher up staff members agree me. However, none of them wanna say anything because she is our boss and don't want to get into an arguement or get fired. I guess I'm different like that, especially with my kids, I want what's best for them and I'll defend and stand up to anyone if I have to. And we all discussed it over at Popeyes, Friday will be a long day at work already. I'll go with Ayinde's plan for tomorrow and just keep my mouth shut and be a robot.
 
Drawing Me Closer

What a day, nothing better then driving out to Canton for work. Then making your way over to Detroit to run things there. In 2 weeks, the Canton camp will have a closing ceremony where my Detroit kids will be invited to see. I'm in charge of running a lil' show for my Detroit camp so that don't feel left out when Canton does their thing. So what do I have in mind at this point?

Well I'm gonna try to get high tech and do a powerpoint show.
Then I'll move on and do a tribute to the Detroit Pistons with my kids.
3rd I am gonna try to squeeze in a song, sung by Yan Zi, performed by my girls.
Finally we'll cap it off with the finale in which I worked on with some of my kids today. What is the finale? My kids will be doing a dance/skit performance to Jay Chou's "San Nian Er Ban." Let's see the Canton camp top that one off. Now the tough part, is me choregraphing the dance moves while making sure I translated this song correctly. Plus I wanna squeeze in another Jay Chou song, hmmm probably, Qing Tian or Dui Bu Qi.

Finally, the countdown has begun to the KUMC tournament. The games and competition has finally heated up. I'm glad at least C. Jung was with me today. The comp. was pretty good today that it felt good to kick it up a notch at the S.S. level. It would be cool to get some love for YCF, plus free all you can eat bulgogi but there is Fun at the Park.

Ye Hui Mei

Spreading the love, was what happened at ACA today! We had a Christian Evangelism team from Milwaukee come in and share God's Word and do some skits as well. I was excited and pumped for my kids to be hearing the Gospel. However, since this is "reglious" thing we had to get consent from all of the kid's parents to allow them to hear/see this experience. I was bummed that there were at least 7 kids whose parents did not want their kids to take part of this experience. One of my girls came up to me and said that her mom does not want her to believe in God or that Christian stuff. I was bummed but I didn't let that hamper my day.

I had my kids lined up and all fired up ready to go. The Milwaukee team consisted of 30-40 team members and they set a stage right in the middle of our street! I mean if you've seen where I work at, it is not the safest part of the D. I mean we have broken class, hookers, druggies, and homeless people all over the place. But the team set this stage up so huge where we had glaring speakers, and a nice stage so everybody on the streets can see.

I was playing the cheerleader, as I had my kids chant out, CBC, God, and Jesus at different times of the day. The Milwaukee team was even sharing the Gospel to all those who live or were out in the streets. They were just spreading the love and going out of their comfort zone to meet/greet people no matter what they look like, or the amount of money they make, or even if they live in a house. For myself this is something that I need to work on. What a blessed way to end the day at work. At the same time, as I was watching Mission Possible of Milwaukee, my thoughts and prayers remain with Team Taiwan.

Throwback

One thing that I do miss from the trip was for sure being able to speed. Normally I obey traffic outside of Mi except for Chi-town. I left work today in Canton, at 8:00 p.m. and just casually driving back home. Then all of a sudden this black, pimped out limited edition Grand Am SL/T(?) sped through every lane. I mean this guy was cutting through traffic like a hot knife through butter.

So I decided to catch up to him so I could give him a nod of let's get this going then. This was at 696 and 275 when we first started. We kept playing cat and mouse with each other up at a calm speed of 120 mph. I finally took a huge risk due to the amount of traffic at 696 and Telegraph. I let him pass me thinking he won, but only so I can exit over to 10 and hop back on to 696.

The result, this risk was well worth it because I won. I slowed back down on 696 to see if he could catch up. Which he did, by the time I was at 696 and Woodward. He pulled up next to me, as we were driving next to each other. He gave me a thumbs up for my move on exiting to 10. We decided to have our windows down to chit chat while driving and here's how our convo went:

K: What took you so long?
Grand Am: I caught up to you now didn't I?
K: Yeah cuz I slowed down for ya :)
Grand Am: Do you want to continue this?
K: Sure, let's go again baby!
Grand Am: Let's do this!

Round 2 started at 696 and 75 after our convo. We sped off and this time I left him in the dust for sure as he dropped off and got lost in traffic at 696 and 10 Mile. I finally hit a new high in my car too, 130 mph.

This was by far the most friendliest street race I've been in. It was fun because we both have a great amount of respect for each other's driving skills. Those who think they are road rage "greats" are on the low end of the totem pole. A guy like this Grand Am, will put those in their places. Street racing is where it's really at for that good adrenaline rush. I wish I got that guy's info or something because I would of loved to do this again with him. However, there will be others that I'll see on the road who think they can haze other drivers then that's when I come in.

Broken

Finally home from the airport, work, 5:14, then family dinner. This day could of not been any longer. So what's my take of my Seattle/Vancouver trip?

I decided to take on the driving throughout the trip because I wanted everyone else to relax. Plus it just thrills me to death when I drive to new places! It was wierd because I felt as if I was Neo or something on that first day in Seattle/Vancouver. It was like God downloaded all the maps in my head where I didn't need to refer to my maps as much.

Vancouver What a beautiful city, and despite what my aunt, Derrick, and mom said. I have no complaints about the place we stayed at. I loved it because it was in the heart of everything with freeway access. Plus our rental car, Caddy Deville, boy did I grind that sucker down. Thanks to Harris for giving me the highlights as I pretty much hit every major sight. I love the fact that Richmond and Chinatown were a dominant Cantonese speaking area so it made easier transition for me. I also love the fact that I didn't get charged for any phone calls on my cellie.

I just love the view of the city. I mean the expression my parents made when taking pics, they kept saying ooooh this pic will make it look like as if we were back in HK. I took so many pics of just the background with the lovely mountains. Sunday nite, I even took off at 2:00 a.m. so now that I could say I drove from Richmond, to West V, to North V, down to Burnaby, to Westminister, and back to Richmond. If you look on a V map, you would notice that I drove through every bridge and circled all of Vancouver. With that, I can say this too, which I do not say much either. I can easily see myself living in Vancouver because of it's beauty, population of Asians/Caucasions mixed, freeway (I abused the heck of the HOV lane), culture, and the sights. There's only one of other city now other than Vancouver that I can say that about which is Minneapolis. I just love how both these cities look at nite. My parents and aunt are even looking to buy some property out here now too! However, it sounds cooler for me to say that I'm from the D rather than the V eh?

I also made a new gal pal out there, my girl lollipop ;) For all single asian males, I tell ya, the V is the place to be to meet up with many lang lui's. I mean they were just all over the place. It was funny to see my family having 4 meals a day now too with our every midnite snack around the V. We even went to the casino 2 min away from our hotel. I won $50, in which I was dubbed "Stone Cold Shooter" because of my hot streak I just never gave any expression win or lose. I had people give me money to put down for them while I was rolling. One of the waitresses was dropping a massage for me while I was shooting. My dad was laughing because nobody wanted to shoot after me. When I cashed out, so many people came up to me to shake hands with me, and congratulate me. All bout me out in the V eh? Everyday I sported my D gear too, and many peeps gave me props for where I'm from, and there ain't no shame for me.

I even ate at the Harbour Centre, V's own CN Tower. I ordered a coke thinking that I get free refills. However, it cost me $6 for a cup of coke and it was not even the best fricking coke I've ever tasted. Our total bill came out to $300 plus tip, and the view was well worth it because I took a lot of pics.

Seattle I wish I could of stayed here longer so I could explore more. I walked through downtown, and I still have hope that the D will be like Seattle's downtown one of these days. I spent over $120 on Sonics gear which was well spent. Although out of all the Chinatown's I've been to, Seattle's is the smallest that I've been to with no good eats either. However, Seattle is just as pretty and if I stayed a couple of extra days then I could give ya more input.

With that, I missed my kids and I showed up to the field trip once I flew in. All you heard echoed throughout the Jew Center, was my name chanted in unison. I was upset because one of the counselors was upset that the kids would rather listen to me than her. I played hockey and soccer with them today where in soccer I scored the only goal while posting a shutout too. It was boys vs. girls and I played for the girls team, so the girls rubbed it in the guys faces. Since I drove myself to the field trip, I had to drive myself back to ACA while the rest of them took the bus. I drove right behind the bus to wave and then fly by them. I was informed later on that day, that as I drove by the whole bus was pounding on the windows chanting my name once more. To be The People's Champ has a lot of huge responsibilities. So with that, this thing is longer than ever, time to get some sleep then back to work I go, so excited baby.

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

I just wanted to say, may God be with Team Taiwan these next 2 weeks. May He be with all of us throughout the holiday week. I miss my kids already.

Time to pack

I continue to learn a lot more at work these days. My boss talked to me about already planning for next year's camp. She wants me to start over or revamp the camp to add some spice into it. She said that she'll stay out of it because she's too busy and trusts me. I'm thankful for having such a supportive and godly boss. I'm thankful that she helps me when I am frustrated such as today, and helps me focus on Him.

So what did I learn today? I learned that one of the other counselors is using/copying the same system that I have been using. She tries to keep it a secret so I don't know that she's using it. On one hand it's nice that they trying to meet the bar that I've set, however now it forces me to push myself even higher.

I truly believe that one of my kids was mistreated last week. My boy Andrew, was at another table and this week I have him at my table. Now I know Andrew, he may be a troublemaker but I know he is smart too. I've been really observant and I noticed last week that Andrew and a few others were able to raise hell whenever they want. It was cool with the counselor because she didn't have to deal with it as long as she has her 3 girls to play with. She was thankful that Andrew is not at her table anymore. Last week, he collected only 2 stickers! While already mid-way through the week, he has collected 6 stickers with me. Yesterday and today made me the most proud because he took 2nd in a clay craft, 1st in a puppet activity, and 1st in chinese calligraphy. He has put in more effort with me because he knows that I care about him. I noticed the 3 girls at the beginning of the week had 5 times as many stickers and tickets as Andrew. Kids aren't dumb, they know who you like and who you don't. Many counselors don't want him at their tables, but I do. I've taught him on Sundays, and he's been with me since my first year at ACA. I have faith in him that he can succeed and he's showing it to the rest of the counselor's right now.

Which brings me to my next point at work. We had a teacher come in to teach Chinese Calligraphy. Now she's old and she is very mean to the kids if they make a mistake. I didn't say anything at first because afterall it is her time to teach. However, when you intimidate one of kids and make him cry, thinking you all bad then I need to step in. Big Bad Mama as I referred to her as, made one of my boyz cry at another table. When the camp saw that, most of them stopped working because they did not want to be scolded at. But, not my kids at my table because I fired them up with a pep talk. I kept telling my kids that "we aren't scared of Big Bad Mama", "just cuz you older than us we ain't backin down." The teacher usually picks the best ones and hang them up on the wall. I kept telling my kids, "show Big Bad Mama you ain't scared by putting in your best work up there, make her put your work up there and eat her words." My table was fired up like no other. My boss heard me saying all this and all she did was laugh.

I went back to talk to my boy who cried and I got into his head. I told that he's gotta show to her that he ain't scared either. He bought into and just grabbed the brush and took over. I fired the rest of that table up by telling them "who's gonna back him up and go to war baby against Big Bad Mama." Next thing ya know, bam the kids responded.

Now my kids at my table, all went up to Big Bad Mama, and told her "you better put our work up there." Even my Mei Mei through in a "grrrrr." Why because I teach my kids don't scared and don't back down. After this incident, the kids now call my table, The People's Table because that is where they all wanna be at. What happened to the rest of the counselors? Well they just chit chatted away while their kids were sitting around before my rally cry. High fives were going all around by me, even my Lil' G from Kindergarten responded.

My table, we ain't no joke and to the rest of dem I ain't no joke either. One of my kids wrote a story about me today too. I read it and it touched me because they know I care and give this job to the max. My kids ain't no joke, they ain't dumb they see it from everyone's action or inaction.

2 Days Left