Tidbits

This has been one roller coaster year. Although the year has not officially come to an end but I am just going to post my end of the year blog now.

This year, well technically towards the end of December 2003 I was given the news that because my company is reclassifying our job titles, I would lose my job then because it does not qualify with my H1B visa. To make the long story short, the new job title does not require a college degree and since my H1B was issued with a college degree, it does not meet the criteria of my new job thus requiring me to stop working. Bottom line is I got penalized for having a college degree. I was pretty down and wrote this post.

So the year 2004 started with me losing my job in Jan. 2004. You would think that I would be able to sit at home and be a couch potato but I had to plan my wedding for May 2004 when not much has been done because I have been pretty busy in 2003. The previous sentence made it sound all so relaxing but yet during that time I was quite nervous because there were mortgages and bills to be paid on top of the wedding I needed to plan. I learn to be courageous and just continued on seeking another job and plan my wedding.

Then in February, we have learned that my ailing grandma has gone into a coma. Grandma passed away in March thus requiring me to go back to Taiwan for the funeral in April. There was a lot of restlessness going on during these times but sometimes you just have to tough things out and do what is called of you at the time. So with the wedding just around the corner, I left for Taiwan to attend my grandma’s funeral. During this trip I learned a precious lesson. But before I left for Taiwan, I received a call that my company is ready to hire me back to a new position but I informed them of my situation and told them that the job will have to wait until I come back. So I was in Taiwan for approximately 10 days and after coming back for a weekend or so, I started my new position with the same company who had let go of me in January.

After 3 weeks on the job, I took a month of vacation for my wedding in May. After getting married here, we went back to Taiwan to hold our wedding banquet for all of our relatives and more…and I mean really much much more (like 800 people more) . I don’t really embrace the idea of flying because since year 2000 I always puke on the way to Taiwan and back to US. So it wasn’t much fun flying to Taiwan and back in April and flying to the French Polynesian (in the South Pacific which is almost the same distance as Taiwan) for our honeymoon and then back to LA to catch our flight out to Taiwan and back to Washington DC in May and June. I made my mind that I had my year’s worth of flying but I did collect a lot of mileage points

So you would think all the craziness ends in June after my trip back from Taiwan…well, I wish. During the July 4th weekend I decided to go and take out all 4 of my wisdom teeth. I signed up with Ken and Steven’s doctor. Both of the Lin brothers recovered within 3 days of their surgery and up and bouncing around and playing video games. Okay maybe not exactly what I had described but they recovered rather quickly. Well, it took me 4 to 5 weeks to recover after experiencing 2 infections and had to go back to the doctor for 2 infection treatment and 2 follow-ups. So this now brings us to August where I am finally doing pretty well and enjoying life…or enjoy being alive.

Things were quiet until I think October when Ken felt a sharp pain to his heart and was feeling ill for a span of 3 weeks. At first we thought it might have been some sort of heart attack but after testing the doctor showed everything to be negative. Then we kind of figured out with Dr. Victor that it might have been heart burn (i didn’t know heart burn last so long). After being on medication for 1 week Ken started to feel better and I stopped worrying as much and slept better at night instead of sleeping half of the time and the other half trying to listen to make sure he is still breathing

Sorry I rambled on too much but God’s blessing and planning was all within this year even though it was kind of crazy. God let me take a three months break with pay between January till April because He knew I had to plan my wedding and didn’t have time. I guess he also knows that I would need the time to fly back to Taiwan as well. He let me get sick so I would value the preciousness of life and He let Ken get sick so we would start to think about eating right and taking good care of ourselves. Most importantly, it motivated me to be a better wife and to improve everyday as someone’s wife. It’s kind of a blessing in disguise and He always knows better.

There are lots of other things I didn’t mention like our house had rice worm problem for a little short while and the year ends with the Sprint Nextel merger news and of course the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that killed tens of thousands of people. I am once again reminded of the wonderful things He has done for me and for sustaining my life.