What’s important now and later?

Dear children,

I know the joy of instant gratification is everywhere around us. Heck, I am writing this on a mobile device that epitomizes this point. There is also delayed gratification that a lot of people rave about. However, delayed gratification is only as good as the reason why we are delaying such gratification in the first place.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6:33‬ ‭NIV‬‬
https://www.bible.com/111/mat.6.33.niv

If you seek His kingdom first, you are going to have to make choices on what you are going to put first in your life. The temptations of instant gratification may lead you away from God’s immediate will for your life. Wrong delayed gratification, no matter how great the outcome may be by worldly standards, will also lead you away from God’s purpose in your life.

So, make careful Godly decisions about your life. His Kingdom comes first. Always. God has never failed Mommy and Daddy. Don’t let the trappings of the world pull you away from the best that God has for your life. Frame, power, riches all come and go like the weeds that were growing in our yard. God’s purpose for you, however, is eternal and unique to who He has called you to be.

Keep your hearts close to Jesus. He will guide you in all your ways so that you fulfill your God-given eternal purpose to make Jesus known to others and to serve His people.

It’s okay to rest

Dear Sons, dear daughter,

Don’t feel guilty to rest. Don’t make others make you feel guilty about resting. I trust that you will teach yourselves the line between resting and laziness. If not, learn from your mom 😆

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
‭‭Colossians‬ ‭3:23-24‬ ‭NIV‬‬

As hard as you work, learn to rest well. Ask God to bless your rest. Not only will you feel better, but people around you will be happier (because you will be less tired and cranky).

It’s really difficult to keep up

I thought that it would be easier to keep a blog. Yea, what was I thinking. Can’t believe it’s been years since I last posted. So much has happened that I can’t even begin.

My thought now is to post something short every week. There’s not enough hours in a week but my motivation is to leave something for my kids to find later that they would find amusing: a musing dad that they didn’t realize cuz they be too young. Haha.

So… here’s to another try at blogging.

It’s “cold” and raining in California… in April!

I like to joke that I brought the last two years of crazy weather that California’s been having… Before I came to CA in 2016, it was apparently just straight up sunshine and dry heat from Feb to Nov. After I started at UC Davis, California has had record wet winter and the current weird weather season. If the weather goes back to CA Normal after I leave CA, then it will be confirmed: I brought it from Korea. 😅🙃😊

Here we go…

The context:

I am an international student at UC Davis. This means that I am in the US on a student visa. For many reasons beyond my control, my original goal of transferring to a Ph.D. program here at UC Davis is … heading down the category titled, “Another Failed Life Initiative by Jin”. Ha! The reason? Simple: there is no funding available for the kind of research that I am interested in and my advisor deems worthy undertaking. Unfortunately, at my age, I don’t want to abandon my previous work experience to pursue something radically different from what I have been doing — specifically, energy storage.

Long story short, the time period, given to international students after graduation known as OPT (Optional Practical Training), is only ONCE per degree LEVEL. This puts me in that category where I have 60-days to leave the US once I graduate. Nice, huh?

My potential employer has been amazingly nice and has filed an H1-B visa petition for me to work for them. There is a quota on the number of people accepted into the US for work and every year, it’s a random lottery selection to determine who gets to work in the US.

The H1-B visa selection for this fiscal year has been completed as of today.

https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-completes-h-1b-cap-random-selection-process-fy-2019

Now we wait… Will know by May… latest June.

The First Post

The first steps are often the most important and maybe often the most difficult. I sat here for a bit thinking about how or what I would write in my first post. Knowing how many times I have failed in the previous attempts to keep a blog going, this may as well turn out to be the Last Post. Haha. Let’s hope not.

My motivation for this iteration of blogging seems simple enough: I want to document (electronically, I guess) the life events that I find myself in as I move through life at this stage so that anyone who may find themselves in similar situations can be encouraged to plow through their own life events. Over the years, I have come to realize that many, many people go through similar life events. The details may vary due to where you are in the world and your stage in life and all those nice things, but many of the events really touch and affect us in very similar ways.

Would you come along for a ride with me? I am fine with agreeing to disagree and hope that whoever’s reading the post on this site would extend the same grace to me in my choices and decisions in life. I will not pretend to know what’s going on in everyone’s life and why they make the choices they do: the stuff here is just my take on my life as a father of 4 kids trying to make sense of life in these crazy times.

Welcome to the site!