life

1. I've started working.  Although I probably shouldn't call it that because what I've been doing for the past week or so could hardly be considered "work." After orientation last week, my first week in the office consisted of hours of reading old Stephen King novels (courtesy of a sympathetic coworker) and doing crossword puzzles/sudoku at my desk while I anxiously awaited the arrival of my computer and phone.  Apparently the huge storm a couple weeks back made life tough for everyone in the IT department which made life tough (or easy) for me this past week.  Now, as you can see, I finally have a computer...except I don't have access to any of the drives I need to start doing work.  And so I wait.... At least now I have internet access.  I don't know if I could have taken any more sudoku (although I did get really good in a really short time).

2. I've been loving these winter Olympics.  So many great stories and drama filled moments have been interspersed throughout these past 2 weeks.  While the games got off to a rocky start, the athletes have risen to the occasion and delivered some incredibly memorable performances. A few that come to mind include Bode Miller redeeming himself with gold and silver medals after coming away empty handed  in the Torino games (deservedly so) and the Chinese couple that came out of retirement and gave up the first years of their marriage to train for pair's skating gold one more time (and it paid off!).  Oh, and I guess I can't fail to mention the domination of the Koreans in speed skating (judging incompetency aside...)

The only quibble I have with the games is that all the good competitions come on close to midnight, and I have to wake up at 5:30 every morning.  So, I either have to miss watching some events live or wake up feeling like a zombie.  Some nights, I go to bed earlier than my parents.  I feel like a grandpa.

Regardless, last night I resigned myself to this morning's impending zombie-ness so I could watch Yun-ah Kim compete in the ladies figure skating competition.  I have to admit, I was a little nervous for her after the NBC announcers hyped her up so much.  While they have their flaws, they are certainly adept at milking the drama out of every situation, especially for all the high profile skaters.  However, it was as if Yun-ah wasn't aware of the incredible pressure surrounding her, because she was crazy good.  I don't know much about the technicalities of figure skating but I do know that phrases like, "best ever" and "one of the greats" (both of which were hushedly mentioned several times after her dazzling performance) only apply when a program is, well, the best in a long time.  And to think she did that with the weight of an entire country's hopes on her 19 year old shoulders astounds me. 

So I felt incredible pride.  I was a little disappointed though, when I logged on to facebook this morning and saw that that same pride in me had evolved into downright arrogance in some fellow Koreans.  I'm fine with celebrating a great win, but verbal harassment toward her competitors (most of which was pointed toward the Japanese Mao Asada in second place) is below us I think.  I know there are cultural differences and deep-seated tensions between the two nations that run far longer than I've been on this earth and I'm not saying that a friendly rivalry between the countries is necessarily even a bad thing, but come on, are we still so obtuse as a people that we have to resort to using words like "dirty Japs" or being downright giddy when anything bad happens to a Japanese person?  Most of the people I'm referring to have little or absolutely no reason to be this crass and insensitive either.  If you're 70 year old Korean man who refuses to buy japanese cars or tv's after living through the Japanese occupation that's one thing (not saying its ok, but at least somewhat understandable), but a 17 year old high school kid who spouts hatred like that is just copying the cultural arrogance and xenophobia of their parents' generation.  Learn to think on your own.  And this is all without even mentioning the spiritual implications this has for those of us who call ourselves Christians.  There are (or have been) Japanese people who attend our church for goodness' sake.  Japan is one of the most unreached developed countries in the world.  How are we ever going to spread the love of Christ to them if we have none of our own to give? 

I know I may be blowing things out of proportion just a little and that my audience is indeed small, but I've seen careless remarks by a few people (especially of the racial kind) have huge effects in the past.  Sorry for preaching; I know I'm hardly qualified to do so, but it needed to be said.

 I guess its back to sudoku now... :)

vday

i found this on a website and thought it was funny.

if you rearrange the letters in "valentine's day" you can get some interesting combinations.  A warning, some of these are a little risque...

"Any valid teens?"
"A lady sin event"
"A venal destiny"
"An invested lay"

the english language never ceases to amaze.

blizzard of 2010 brings out the best (and worst)

my mom came into my room this morning saying, "something's wrong with our car, come outside!"

i went outside in my groggy, pre-showered state to see that my driver's side window had been completely shattered. at first i thought the weight of the snow on top of the car had crushed the window after 3 days of weighing down the car, but after shoveling a path around the car to investigate further, i noticed that the driver's side door had a huge dent in it too.  it looked like a crumpled soda can.  also, i discovered glass from the window underneath the 2 and a half feet of snow, which means this all happened before the snow came on friday.  

some idiot was probably driving too fast friday night despite the snowy conditions, lost control, and sideswiped the car.  now that i think about it, it was the perfect hit and run scenario.  with all the snow in the forecast, it took us 2 days to get out to the street to notice the damage.  also, because the car was literally buried, it looked completely fine underneath all that snow.  only after the snow melted a little bit could we see the damage.  i hope the jackass gets stuck in the snow and freezes to death.  

we called some nearby relatives to help us shovel the rest of the snow around the car so we could put it in the garage, only to find out that the car battery had died sometime during the past three days.   luckily, our neighbor is handy with cars, so he helped us recharge our battery.  finally, after an eventful morning filled with shoveling, phone calls to geico, cleaning bits of broken glass, and even more shoveling, we got the car into the garage.  now we're just waiting for a tow truck to come get it; hopefully sometime before the snow starts up again (blizzard of 2010 redux?).

so, i guess all's well that end's well.  a bad situation brought forth good company (and a good workout).  i'm just crossing my fingers for at least a couple incident free days.  with another foot or more of snow in the forecast however, i doubt we'll be so fortunate.  oh well, spirits remain high in the pyon house.   

ps.  since my dad is away in sunny vietnam  for business (90 degree weather, seriously?), my mom and i cleared our entire driveway and street in front of our house on sunday and monday.  i'm so proud.  she didn't even complain once (unlike my dad who claims he's gonna have a heart attack every 15 minutes).

uva bball 2010

i'm no rick reilly or mike wilbon, so forgive me for trying my hand at a sports-related post.  i just have nothing else going on in my life right now and the public (jonathan) is clamoring for a post.



this vid basically sums up my experience with uva bball this year.  i dunno what tony bennett is doing, but it's got our guys fired up and motivated (and playing solid d?  now i've seen everything).   what everyone expected would take at least a couple years (hoos were picked to finish second to last in acc this year) has happened almost overnight (as i'm writing this, we're currently tied for second in the acc with a 5-2 record), and i couldn't be happier with the way the team is playing.  yes, we have encountered a few bumps in the road (painful, close losses to teams like penn state and auburn come to mind, ugh), but we've responded with strong showings every time. i never thought i'd see the day when we'd come off a heart breaking overtime loss at home to our instate rival and respond with a beat down of epic proportions in the dean dome vs last year's national champ.  i guess it also helps that the acc as a whole isn't at its strongest, but hey,  i'm not complaining.

the best part is that everyone seems to have bought in to this system and everyone is contributing in their own way (not to mention having fun).  case in point, will sherrill, a junior walk-on  who hadn't played more than a few minutes in his whole college career must have impressed his coaches during practice, because he has become a solid part of the line up.  his stats may not show it, but he makes his teammates better by doing all the little things right; hustling, boxing out, locking down on d, setting good screens, etc. Oh, he also dropped 25 in the game against cleveland state.

the fact that we only lose 2 seniors next year (our top scorer is a sophomore) and have a pretty stacked recruiting class makes me even more giddy.  so, not only does bennett coach well and motivate, apparently he attracts talent too.... could it be?  i think i'm in love.  scouts has our incoming class ranked at 14th in the country (although duke, nc state, wake, and unc are all top ten... i guess some things never change) and it looks like we'll be more than comfortable at every position with some much appreciated big guys coming in to help beef up our post presence and at least 1 all-american guard to give us more options around the perimeter.

i know the season is still a long way from being over and we have lots of tough tests down the road, but for these reasons i can't help but to be at least a little optimistic.  i only wish i had enrolled for another semester so i could go to some games without paying.  30 bucks to drive 2 hours and sit in the nosebleeds is steep when you're used to sitting basically courtside and walking to every game for free.  listening to games on the radio is the next best option most of the time, and that's like dating a really nice, funny, sincere, smokin' hot...... hologram.  exciting maybe, but so far from the real thing.  maybe i should just count my blessings and be happy with the way things are going.

restless

as much as i love not having to worry about things like class schedules and homework and online wait lists anymore, these past couple weeks have reminded me that i'm at my best when i don't have hours and hours of free time to waste.  case in point, i now know the daytime tv schedules of all the broadcast channels like the back of my hand.  i think my parents have caught on to this, because they've recently started giving me things to do while they're off at work (vacuum, pick up x-item from y-location, fix ____ , etc.).  i've also started to dig into my pile of books i got from urbana. 1 down, 6 to go.  maybe i'll finish before i start working.  

other things.  i received my diploma in the mail today.  so i guess its official, im a college grad.  it wasn't that bad of a shock though because i was already forced to come to terms with it a while back when i tried to sign into uva's online student ticketing system for basketball games and got denied :( .  that's when it really hit me.  

i also received 2 notices in the mail saying i need to start paying back student loans come july.  same message as my diploma, worse medium.

to face my new financial responsibilities head-on, i made an account on www.mint.com.  its a personal budgeting website that links to your online banking account to show you how you spend your money and give you alerts if you spend over your set budget. i felt so good about myself for taking initiative to get my finances straight, until i got a warning email telling me that as of right now, my net worth is in the red... so i need to start working pronto.  i know i'm supposed to find worth in god and identity in christ, but the realization that you are worth less than $0 to the rest of the world is still pretty humbling.  

but while this all sounds melancholy and brooding, it's amazing what an unexpected round of golf with your dad can do for one's psyche.  one nice drive and you feel like you're on top of the world.  it was a good day.

been awhile?

i thought it had been a really long time since the last time i updated this thing, but a week and a half doesn't seem that long now that i think about it.  maybe it's just because i've been sitting on my butt doing nothing all day but watch tv and the occasional house chore for the duration of that week and a half.

but not anymore!  after interviewing with the census bureau last week, i got an official job offer today!  now comes the fun part of filling out a plethora of forms and paperwork, as well as getting a background check done (includes going to the police department to get fingerprinted), and orientation.  it was such a relief to open up the email and see a big, bold CONGRATULATIONS!! from the hr lady who sent it.  she seems like a nice person.  god bless people like her.  and all the people who have helped me along the way.  i wouldn't have even gotten the opportunity to interview had it not been for the efforts of a friend of mine from church who works there.  there are countless more, from the career counselor at U. Va. who helped me update my resume and gave me some interview pointers, to my cousin who helped me practice my handshake (not even joking), to my parents who have been ever-supportive of me this entire time and were gracious enough to let me come back home to live with them after college.  they said it was to save money.  i think it's because they like having me around.

so, the earliest i can come in for orientation is mid february (i know its far away), which means i am a free man for one month longer (free and bored).  then its 9-5:30 till i retire.  ugh, maybe i should rethink this whole "graduating from college early so i can work" nonsense.  :)

urbana

as many of you know, i recently came back from urbana 09, a student mission's conference held every three years in st. louis, MO.  about 17,000 students, campus staff workers, and pastors came together to learn about the state of God's global kingdom work and how they can get involved.  each day was jam packed with great speakers, incredible worship, drama, dance, thought-provoking seminars, and insightful bible studies.  it allowed me to experience a week without all the distractions of school, career, media, sports, the list goes on and on.

while the conference was very much outward focused (what do you expect from a mission conference?), i couldn't help but to gain some insight about the state of things in my spiritual life.  leave it to me to learn more about myself than others at a missions conference... self-centered much?  regardless, god showed me some shortcomings in my life that were limiting my effectiveness as a servant for his kingdom.  it was almost as if he was saying, "before you can go out and make a difference in other people's lives, examine your own heart.  do you really love me?  do you really care about making my name great?"  i got hit pretty hard by a sobering reality check during one of the speaker's talks about money and possessions.  these past couple months, i've really been occupied with the next step in my life and how i'll become financially independent and make the best career decision for my life.  when i heard a story about multi-millionaires who chose long ago (when they were young and poor) to live on a fixed income no matter what they made, i was taken aback.  these are the kinds of decisions i should be praying (or at least thinking) about now, while i'm young.

i also learned a little bit more about my own path to salvation.  one of the seminars talked about how the path to salvation is just that, a path, not a single point of conversion.  it's only at the very end of that path that non-believers make the choice to follow christ.  i think too many christians are too concerned about that last step in the process, just focused on adding numbers but not focused enough on the (often harder) steps that lead up to the point of conversion.  the guy who led the seminar wrote a book after he interviewed thousands of new believers about their path to christ.  surprisingly, most of them followed a very similar route with 5 common thresholds they crossed before giving their lives over to christ.  the five thresholds are:

1. trusting a christian
2. becoming curious about Jesus
3. being open to change
4. actively seeking God
5. conversion

he then talked about how these five steps could be applied to the conversion story one of his nonbelieving friends.  as he was talking, i realized that i did things completely backwards in my own path to salvation.  i became a christian when i was 7, basically because i wanted to go to heaven and because everyone else was  doing it.  so i started at step five without experiencing the true change of heart that is usually required for anyone to start following christ.  i had nothing in my life that i needed to change (i was a little kid), and i was completely uninterested in seeking God (learning about him and seeking him are two different things).  because i was a pastor's son, i could tell you all sorts of facts and bits of information about the bible, but facts without belief are useless.  growing up,  i mistook my knowledge about God for an actual relationship with him.  needless to say, i was humbled and shaken by this realization.

one thing is certain. my eyes were definitely opened this past week.  the number of opportunities out there for christians to spread his love are greater than ever before.  i didn't receive a specific calling, but i was challenged to widen my gaze and consider the world around me.  i'm glad i went.