Moved… again.

Since I am a lazy bum and I do not like to type a lot, I have decided to start a tumblr so I can fill up space by posting pictures.  Here it is!

http://mateochango.tumblr.com/

Jeremiah 35

Wow.  I’ve been pretty terrrrible at updating my blog.  I started a post a few weeks ago, but I never got around to finishing it. :[  Oh wells!

Anyway, I’ve been reading through Jeremiah because I finished Isaiah and didn’t know where to go after.  It was a pretty logical choice, I guess.  I’ve realized that I haven’t been really absorbing the passages that I’ve been reading – I’ve kind of just been reading the words.  Hopefully if I write something down, it’ll stick better in my brain.

Today’s passage was Jeremiah 35.  So in this passage God commands Jeremiah to go talk to the Recabite community, and as Jeremiah speaks to these people, he hears from them that their ancestor commanded them “You are not to drink wine, you or your children, ever. Neither shall you build houses or settle down, planting fields and gardens and vineyards. Don’t own property. Live in tents as nomads so that you will live well and prosper in a wandering life” (Jeremiah 35:6-7 – The Message) and that they have been following this commandment since it was given.  The sons of Judah, however, chose to ignore God’s calling, and He promises calamity upon them for their disobedience.  After God commands judgment upon the people of Jerusalem through Jeremiah, he tells the Recabites of their reward for their faithfulness in verse 19-ish (The Message doesn’t really label each verse D:): “Because you have done what Jonadab your ancestor told you, obeyed his commands and followed through on his instructions, receive this Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: There will always be a descendant of Jonadab son of Recab at my service! Always!“

What struck me the most in this passage was the nature of the Recabites’ reward.  God doesn’t promise them worldly riches, protection from harm, or even physical security.  He promises them and their descendants the opportunity to serve God. I know for sure that I take the opportunities that I have to serve God for granted.  I often think that serving God is a choice that I make and a sacrifice I choose to give, and it’s really humbling to be reminded that even the work that I do for God is a gift from Him.  It makes me question whether or not I take my service for God as something to be enjoyed, and something to take joy from.  I guess the opportunity to serve God really IS the greatest reward because it means that God is willing to use our ineptitude and our brokenness in His magnificent and great plans.  I have yet to fully embrace that and fully appreciate the amount of grace God is showing me by giving me the opportunity to serve Him, but it’s encouraging to know that as I continue to be obedient to Him, God will continue to give me His work to do and I will slowly learn to delight in serving Him.

The Beginning of the ‘Rest of My Life’

I started this post at the beginning of February, and I don’t really feel like filling it out right now.  So naturally…. I’ll publish it!  [:

- started working at yahoo! last monday

- good, easy transition – 2 weeks of orientation, classes

- commute is super super long – tiredness of going to work is mostly contributed by the drive?

- been incredibly sleepy all the time, sleeping 4-6 hours a night

- tiredness -> being more annoyed at stupid things, have to be careful

- challenge:  balance work life, commitments and relationships

- made a new friend!

- things i’ve learned?  coffee is gross (caramel macchiatos are okay), cranberry apple tea is not as good as it sounds, long drives home from work are a good time to spend with God, people who make you music mixes totally rock.

Repeat, Repeat and Repeat Again.

I like to listen to music while I study, and I realized that I always listen to the same songs, over and over and over and over again until I get sick of them.  Here are  few of them!  Hopefully I won’t get sick of them anytime soon…

Shane & Shane – The Answer

i’ve tried more of me
and i’ve come up dry
trading You for things
things that go away
my happiness is found in less
of me and more of You
my happiness is found in less
of me and more of You

i have found the answer is
to love You and be loved by You alone
alright! alright! alright!
You crucify me and the world to me
and i will only boast in You
alright! alright! alright!

i’m so satisfied
at the thought of You
growing up in me
covering everything
my happiness is found in less
of me and more of You
my happiness is found in less
of me and more of You

You are, You are (loved by me)
You are, You are (You’re loved by me)
You are, You are (You’re loved by me)
You are, You are, You are

The cool about this song is that while I was spamming it on my iTunes/iPod, I had a lot of random questions about life/future/relationships swimming around in my head.  It took me like 20 plays of this song for me to finally listen to the lyrics and then proceed to smack myself on the forehead for not paying attention sooner.  It reminded that no matter what choices or decisions I make, if my ultimate goal is to please God… if He is my answer, everything will be a-okay.  Actually, everything will be more than a-okay ‘cuz God doesn’t make a-okay plans… He makes awesome-possum, stupendous ones.  It’s a great comfort/encouragement. :]

Phil Wickham – Cannons

It’s falling from the clouds
A strange and lovely sound
I hear it in the thunder and rain
It’s ringing in the skies
Like cannons in the night
The music of the universe plays

You are holy great and mighty
The moon and the stars declare who You are
I’m so unworthy, but still You love me
Forever my heart will sing of how great You are

Beautiful and free
Song of Galaxies
It’s reaching far beyond the milky way
Lets join in with the sound
C’mon let’s sing it loud
As the music of the universe plays

All glory, honor, power is Yours amen
All glory, honor, power is Yours amen
All glory, honor, power is Yours forever amen

I like this song because it’s called ‘Cannons’ and cannons are weapons and boys like weapons, violence, blowing things up and such.  It’s only natural!  :D  No really… aside from having a sweet title and melody, ‘Cannons’ just a great reminder of how our God loves us, even though we’re so unworthy and so insignificant and He’s awesome and magnificent.  I mean… He’s the creator of the moon!  The stars!  The world!  … and cannons! [:

Good stuff. :]  What are some songs you guys have on repeat?

The End is Near!

Wow… so I have, like, 7 days left of college. O_O

I’ve realized that I like to write lists because it helps me to organize my thoughts.  I have a bunch of random ALDKFJLASDJF thoughts in my head, so one day I will organize them and write a decent post with paragraphs, punctuation and full sentences…. but for now, here are a few more lists!

Things I have to do before I graduate (finish college):

DONE:

• CS160 Project and Presentation
• CS186 Project
• Type up C160 notes to study
• Fill in Psych 150 study guide – 90%
• Make a cheatsheet for CS186
• CS160 Final
• Psych 150 Final
• CS186 Final
• get an A+ in a class (yay E190!)
• go to office hours (yay E190!)
• pull a real all-nighter (no naps!) - did this 12/17… the last day of my college career! :D

Things I have to do before I leave Berkeley:

DONE:

• go to the top of the campanile (went up there freshman year with Keaton)
• hike the big C (many times)
• drive up to LBL (meteor-watching fail with Kat and John)
• watch the sun rise while coding/studying for a test/papering (thank you CS150, NutriSci 10, English R1B -__-)
• watch a Superb show at Wheeler (Michael Cera, Youth in Revolt!)
• go to Gordo’s an inordinate amount of times [NEW]
• chill on the top floor of Barrows [NEW]

TO DO:

• go to the Rose Garden [NEW]
• visit the Botanical Gardens
• go to the Berkeley Marina
• watch a Movement show
• visit the Indian Rock

Note:  BOLD + Italics = done

Anything else that I should do or have already done (so I can add to my list and make myself feel better)? :D

TTITF #3: Reading Week!

Last week I finished my last week of classes at college! O_O  These last two weeks have been a lot of fun and very unproductive, but as always, there’s a lot for me to be thankful for!  Here are 10 of them:

1. Getting love letters at church last, last Sunday.  I went to CFC on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and during worship service, the girl in front of me passed me an offering envelope with her name on one side and the words ‘I love you’ and ‘U?  Y N’ on the other.  Naturally, I was busy paying attention to the sermon so I took the envelope and didn’t really respond to her.  Apparently things weren’t progressing fast enough for her, so she passed me another offering envelope with not only ‘I love you’  on it, but also her address printed on there O_O.  Things wouldn’t have worked out, though… she was a little too short for me.
2. Free week with the small group!  We ate some tasty Zachary’s Chicken Pizza, almost got Ryan to share his deepest secrets, enjoyed some Ici ice cream and spent a couple of unproductive hours ‘studying’.
3. Doing pretty decently on my LAST midterm at Berkeley (despite having to stay up until 7am for it).  WOOHOOO!
4. Getting paid double for a SUUUUPER early work meeting.  This work meeting was pretty poorly planned out, so only 6 or 7 people showed up.. so we got paid for 2 hours for an hour-long meeting :D
5. <sarcasm> Really really sweet white elephant gifts.  I was the super super lucky recipient of a super super nice photo frame that enclosed a beautiful picture of an awesome awesome freshman.  The picture is now hanging off the living room wall of 110, and I’m super super glad I get to see it every day.  *GAG*  </sarcasm>.  In all honestly, I am thankful for silly freshmen who are humorous and don’t mind being called ‘ugly’. (because they are.. *cough* Kevin  *cough*)
6. Iron-on T-shirt adventures with Eunice!  We got lost going to Michaels, got lost going to Target from Michaels and almost got lost coming back to Berkeley. :[  At least we got to sit around for 5 minutes waiting for a train to pass and drive in a couple of very obvious circles.  Anyway, after two failures (one involving a ripped upper-lip and nose) and two trips to Michaels we made one AWESOME t-shirt (that had designs on the front and back, as well as an awesome smiley face on the inside) and one normal t-shirt for Eunice's white elephant.  Now we are iron-on t-shirt pros :]
7. Watching my first (and probably my last) SUPERB show at Wheeler on Friday!  It was pretty awesome getting to see Michael Cera in person and watch an advance screening of his new movie ‘Youth in Revolt’, but it was even more awesome getting to spend 4 hours waiting outside of Wheeler with some of the coolest people I know:  Briana, Jenna, Kevin, and Melanie.  We played 234029384023 games of Big2, made fun of Briana for her poor grammar (“That would be suck.  That would be SO suck.  That would be SO suck that grammar rules don’t even apply.”), took a picture with the firetrucks using Photo Booth on my Mac and chanted ‘MEL-A-NIE!  MEL-A-NIE!’ just for the heck of it :]
8. Humility.  God taught me (and my friends) a great lesson in humility this week… when Washington thrashed us 42-10 on Saturday.  D:  Ohhh wells.  It made choosing to stop watching the game early for the FCS concert an easy decision :]
9. FCS concert on Saturday night!  Good music, hilarious and cheesy skits and more good music.  What’s not to like?
10. 9 days, 2 CS projects, 1 presentation and 3 finals until I’m DONE with college.  God has done some AWESOME things throughout the last 3.5 years I’ve been in school, and I’m excited to see what He’ll do when I’m out in the workforce!

Sleepy time!

TTITF #2: Senior Year, Thanksgiving Break!

So I’ve been meaning to update this pretty frequently, but I guess that didn’t exactly happen :[

However, it's Thanksgiving break and there have been lots of things I've been thankful for, so here are ten of them!

1. Tuesday lunches with James.  I've been super blessed by this cool kiddo.  He's super honest about who he is and he always has something interesting on his mind, which leads to pretty awesome conversations about life, God, school and frustrating roommates (...his, not mine... although mine are pretty annoyi... jk. :P).  It's DEFINITELY worth getting up super super early at 11:45am to eat lunch with this guy.
2. Having a job lined up for the spring!  For those of you who don't know, I've accepted a job offer from Yahoo!, and my start date is January 25, 2010.   (I only get one month to party like there's no tomorrow D:) While working 8-5 days are going to be TERRIBLE for someone like me (see the timestamp for this post), God's provided me clarity in an important aspect of my future, so I'm pretty excited to see what's in store... and to be able to finally treat my friends and family out to some nice meals [Yayuh... steak for my AACF seniors!] :)
3. Tuesday small groups with Michelle, Ryan and Maria.  We’ve added a fourth member to our small group!  It’s been fun studying the book of John, reading Mere Christianity on the side and chatting about life, Christianity and our weeks!  It’s pretty sweet getting to co-lead with Michelle because she’s such a funny, random and punny person.  And she feeds us with gummy hamburgers and hotdogs :D
4. Random visits to IV large group!  I’ve always been really blessed by IV’s worship and messages, and I’ve really enjoyed getting to see some old IV friends and old old high school friends :).  IV’s worship team rocks my socks, and their ‘Good Heartkeeping’ series has been such an encouragement to me… we’ve talked about humility, forgiveness and grace.  Those are some sweet, sweet topics.  I especially enjoyed it when one speaker kept talking about hamburgers, and another brought in children’s toys and a Spiderman figurine to illustrate some brilliant point about God’s grace :P
5. My parents!  They’ve spoiled me for 21 years, and they still find more ways to spoil me.  Even though I’m making my own money, they refuse to let me spend money on myself or on them.  Whenever I pull out my wallet, they get super paranoid and are always like, “Pay with our credit card!  Don’t use yours!” -___-  I think I’m getting to that age where I’m going to have to start paying for dinner on my way to the bathroom.  Sigh.. to be old(er) and Asian…
6. Hanging out with high school friends.  I got to hang out with a couple of them tonight, playing random card games and gambling for happy points (20 happy points = 1 toothless smile, and 30 happy points = 1 toothed smile, btw if any of you were wondering)… and I don’t think that I’ve laughed more while playing card games for a looong time :D.  It’s comforting to know that even though we don’t talk and hang out all the time while we’re in college, we’re still able to meet during a Thanksgiving break, hang out, play silly card games and laugh like insane people together :]
7. Living in Royston 110!  I guess I’m a pretty reclusive person so it’s been pretty awesome having people over at my apartment all the time so I have no excuses to be a hermit and not hang out with people =P.  I also have the three coolest apartmentmates evar:  Greg to play Halo with, Jeftom to watch football with and Justin to watch High School Musical with (while he sings the lyrics to the songs).  It’s a sweet, sweet setup.  I bet you’re all super jealous… not all of your roommates can sing along to a Disney channel movie, but mine can.  Hah.
8. The AACF Freshmen class!  This year’s freshmen class have been prettyyy awesome.  Most of them are pretty outgoing, like to hang out and really, really don’t like to leave 110.  (In fact… we’ve had three of them sleep over already!)  It’s been pretty cool because most of them seem very mature spiritually, and for the few times that I attended freshmen small group, I’ve been really blessed by what they’ve had to say and share.  I know that God will use them tremendously in the future, and I’m excited to see them lead AACF to great places in the future!
9. A new toy to play with!  My parents bought me a Macbook Pro for graduation, and it’s been pretty awesome getting to use it and familiarize myself again with Mac OSX.  I’ve been pretty much an MBP fanboy since I got to use one when I interned over the summer.. It was sweeeet.  Learning how to do new stuff on the Mac really pulls out the geeky EECS major in me :D.  The laptop cost a lot, so I promise that I will use it well and take care of it!
10. Perspective.  I think the theme of my senior year thus far has really been ‘perspective’.  God has really shown me this semester how He works in every single aspect of my life, and how He’s really used the major points (and even seemingly insignificant points) in my life to bring me to where I am today and who I will be in the future.  I realize that I am nowhere near perfect… that I’m still a broken person in need of love and grace, but without Him I would have had no hope of redemption.–I might have been some lost, depressed, self-absorbed fool.  But instead, God has chosen to take me and mold me into a man after His heart.  He has blessed me in sooo many ways (some are listed above), and I am super grateful. :]

OKAY.  All 10 of those things are suuuper wonderful, but right now I’m grateful for sleep.  I’m thankful that there are more than 5 hours before I have to wake up… because if there were less, I would go crazy tomorrow! D:  Good night, world!

TTITF #1: Senior Year, so far

Senior year has been pretty ridiculously awesome so far, and here are some things I’m thankful for:

1. My fellow small group leaders!  Meetings with people on Sunday nights would be dreadfully dreadful, except that I get to spend them with my faaaavorite people on the earth… Greg, Alyssa and Nathan.  Making videos about 60 verses of scripture wouldn’t be nearly as fun without these wacky kiddos [:
2. Having a car to drive.  It makes trips to Sushi House/Emeryville/Ikea/places far, far away (like St. Johns Church for Living Water) more convenient and life easier!
3. NutriSci10.  I had no reason at all to take the class, but I'm taking it and it's been pretty interesting so far.  I got a 47/50 on the first midterm... and then checked back in a few days and saw that the score changed to a 49/50.  Life is pretty good =]
4. Psych150 with Eric Hwang and Henry Kwang.  I get to discuss careers and job interviews with Eric, while having stars of David drawn on my arm by Henry… pretty fun stuff.
5. CS186 with Audris!  She’s pretty much the funniest partner project you could ever have… she falls asleep in class every lecture.  without fail. =)
6. Suuper short lighting set-up/tear-down times at Living Water.  Set-up takes less than an hour, and tear-down took 15 minutes today!  Sweeeeet.
7. Dementia Research in the BiD lab!  Greg and I get to watch videos of people brush their teeth and cut up pieces of paper for hours on end.  It’s actually more fun that it sounds.  Actually, it’s not…. but it’ll get better?  Maybe?
8. Working at Haas a.k.a. getting paid $11/hr to play Bejeweled Blitz.  I think it speaks for itself.
9. Tuesday Night Small (Micro) Group with Michelle and Ryan.  They’re pretty much the coolest kids to have a 3-person small group with.  Fooosho.
10. A job offer from Yahoo!  Thank God for opening doors and letting my friends be okay with treating them out for dinner! =]

Thank you Jesus! :D

‘Ten Things I’m Thankful For’ Series!

Over the summer, I went to Living Water Church in Berkeley (almost) every Sunday for service.  It was a pretty long commute, but I felt refreshed and blessed every time I went–it was definitely the highlight of my week every week. [:

Well anyway, one Sunday Joey gave a message… and while I don’t remember what the message was about, I do remember that he talked about how girls posted ‘Ten Things I’m Thankful For’ lists on their blogs, and how the idea of posting such lists were super lame and super cool at the same time.  And while I’m neither a girl nor an avid blogger, I felt convicted to start my own lists (so I don’t forget what goes on in my life, since I have the memory of, like, an 80 year-old)… but due to a combination of laziness, procrastination and forgetfulness, I didn’t blog at all for the rest of the summer.

Anyway, now’s as good of a time to start as any, so I hope you enjoy the TTITF series! [:

B@W #1: Yahoo! Schwag

Interning at a big company has its perks, and one of them is that they like to give away lots and lots of schwag!

Here is a list of all of the free Yahoo! stuff I’ve collected this summer:

• a purple intern spiral-bound notebook
• a silver ball-point pen
• a green Yahoo! GreenTeam mug
• a purple Yahoo! mousepad
• a new-hire lunchbox (filled with random stationery–staplers/staples, tape dispenser/tape, post-its, scissors, etc.)
• a white baseball cap
• a yellow tape measurer
• a purple 2nd-generation 1GB iPod shuffle (won this during a raffle at an intern event)
• a blue intern t-shirt
• two Yahoo! Marketplace Design & Engineering polo t-shirts
• a black intern zip-up hoodie
• two wooden chopsticks (they’re really Yahoo! branded!)
• a small plastic cup (this was originally used to serve alcohol… I just asked for an unused cup :] )
• (new!) 300 intern business cards
• (new!) a metal thermal tumbler (one of those capped cups that keep hot drinks hot and cold drinks cold)
• (new!) a Yahoo! ‘Interns for Good’ beige t-shirt

Yay for free stuff! [: