Week in Review

It's been a strange and busy week here in the City. The week has been composed of two stark halves -- the first half (up through July 4th) was very positive. I was awarded a scholarship from the Chinese American Medical Society, got some good responses about my initial work w/Curriculum Ambassadorship, and my second first-author paper was finally published. We also got the following changing table to put into our bathroom. Xiao P and a Cincinnati pig will be using it as their home until October...


On the 4th, we went back to Polly-Ann's, had a Hong Kong-style waffle (Eggette), and toured the hidden gem of inner Sunset, the Moraga Steps (kudos to Stephanie for pointing it out on her blog).



We ended our 4th with a fireworks show in our neighborhood park, amongst a horde of hundreds (perhaps a thousand). Not a bad show, but not as good as the New Year's fireworks.

However, the second half hasn't gone so well. Yu finally received notice from the immigration services that they denied her case, evidently because they say she didn't respond to a letter for a biometrics appointment. She had filed an application to remove the provisional status from her green card (given to all marriage-based PRs), and had been following the case diligently since October. We didn't receive any mailings from the government. Now that we look back on it, it is very possible that they may have sent it to the wrong address, or not sent it at all, or it was not delivered to our box (our postman has a habit of misplacing important mail). A perfect example: today we received a notice from immigration about Yu's request last month for more info -- it was addressed to apt 210 (even though her application clearly states apt 201); there isn't even an apt 210, so our mailman, brilliant person that he is, sticks it outside along with a pile of junk mail. Not like there's only one person with the last name of liu or ho living in the entire building... Yu has written a letter to the California center, I've contacted our Congressman for help and will soon be writing a letter as well. We also made an appointment to talk to the local immigration office. The kicker is that were it not for Yu's constant asking, we would never have found out the case was denied (more than 6 months ago!!!).

In other news, we are struggling with getting the study room ready for Chubby's arrival. I've taken to measuring every bit of furniture in our room, such that I could probably call myself an interior engineer. Take a look...


Most likely, we'll move our little bookshelf out of the room or dismantle it (we've gotten to the point of selling stuff on our big bookshelves to make room for everything on the little bookshelf. Today, I spent nearly the entire day reorganizing our pictures that have accumulated without organization over the past few months.


Other projects come slowly. The video project has taken more time than previously thought. I haven't worked on my Curriculum project for a few days just because we spend so much time in these required front-loaded workshops. I haven't had any time to learn Chinese recently. Sigh. Even working out is pretty tiring recently, although I have to admit I love seeing my weight go down (207 and counting...) And some food for thought when reading "Buddha," by Osamu Tezuka. There's a lot of talk about how life is "cruelly short," and would you want to know the exact date of your death, if in fact fate does exist? Would you want to know what you ended up becoming? I don't think there's a lot of introspection today, surely because no one wants to think of grave matters such as their own demise. But on the other hand, knowing that time is limited, the sword of Damocles ever looming, shouldn't that propel you to set things right, to live the life with the most important things considered at the forefront? We should resolve not to live task by task (so dreary), but live to achieve harmony with nature, with ourselves, and with one another.

I believe tomorrow will turn for the better. In the morning, we'll be heading to Oakland to scout out a deal on a guest bed (but it will be for us initially), then going to see our first A's game of the year (a promotion on Stomper is enough to get Yu up early), and if we have enough time, maybe a trip to New China Tofu? If the chinatown furniture thing doesn't work out though, we may not have enough time to make it back to Mancini's to close a deal on a mattress order there ($599 for mattress, box, frame, free delivery, no sales tax, and free pillow). On Monday, I'll also be setting up an appointment to perhaps shadow a child neurologist, Dr. Yvonne Wu.