First Surgery

August 15th at 10:30 am...
I had my first surgery.

It was only oral surgery, but still, I was sedated using an IV and had all 4 wisdom teeth extracted. 
That was the scariest part about it though...the being put to sleep part.
It kept freaking me out wondering what was going to happen and what it would be like. Would I just fall asleep all of a sudden and start dreaming? Would it be just darkness and I could still hear what was going on and just not feel anything or move? 
They were right when they say you don't remember anything. 

The last thing I remember was the Surgeon trying to put the IV in my arm and I told him that they usually take blood samples from my hand cause I have better veins there. He moved it to my hand and he said "You'll feel a little pinch again." I closed my eyes and winced this time as he put it in and he then said "Ah. There it is." With my eyes still closed the nurse told me to open my mouth and she put in a rubber thing to keep my mouth open. I remember my throat feeling very dry and I wanted to swallow saliva but I couldn't because she put that thing in my mouth.  I was worried I would start to gag or choke as I suddenly felt my body tingling. 
The next thing I know, I'm in a sitting position and the nurse is helping me out of the chair while I'm sobbing with cotton in my mouth. I had no idea why I was crying. As they helped me to a recovery bed I heard another nurse call out that my mom was on the way to the back. I saw her when I laid down and sat beside me as a nurse was telling her that crying was a side effect of the sedation. Was my body crying because it knew that I had just went through a lot of pain? Weirdest feeling ever. I was like: "Is it really already over?" "An hour has passed? Where did the time go? I just closed my eyes. Why am I crying?"

It has been 3 days since the surgery and my jaw and cheeks are still a bit sore and tight.
The doctor had said that it was harder than he expected because my mouth is so small and my jaw is so tight. Did he have to break my jaw or something?!? I wonder if I was moaning and crying during the surgery. People are telling me they didn't have it this bad when they had their wisdom teeth removed. 

At least now I shouldn't be waking up with headaches and ear/jaw aches anymore because my wisdom teeth are gone and no longer causing infection. 
But now...I just want to eat normally again. ><;

-Laila

Asian Fest Adventures~

I was at an Asian Festival in San Antonio yesterday. My friends and I spent a lot of time trying to find cute Asian guys. We certainly found some and had great  and funny encounters. BUT there was this one Japanese guy that kept looking back at me every time I would see him and everywhere i would see him. My friends noticed him looking at me too. They kept trying to get me to talk to him, but IM A SCAREDY CAT! I can't go up to HOT ASIAN GUYS and talk to them. I was as red as a tomato and my heart was beating so fast. But i kept being like: NO! I can't talk to him! What do i say!?!? I'll cry! Stop it! Good he's walking away. HE MAKES ME KOKORO GO DOKIDOKI!!!  

So then finally, we thought we had seen him and his friends walk off and leave the place. BUT when we were sitting at a table they walked by and my friend said my name REALLY loud and kept hitting my arm, embarrassing me as he walked by and smiled at us. My friends were like: THIS IS FATE! HE DIDN'T LEAVE! HE WAS LOOKING FOR YOU! GO TALK TO HIM! Of course i didn't budge from that table, so two of my friends ran after him to bring him back to me. Well they did. Luckily, one of my friends takes Japanese with me, so I guess she knew enough to get the point across and his friends knew enough English to tell him. 

But while I was being awkward and introducing myself and talking to him, my phone rang cause my friend was trying to find where i was! This had actually happened earlier when we had run into him and my friends were  trying to get me to say something, but MY CRUSH called because he had come there too and he was wondering when I would be leaving and such. BUT I FELT BAD BECAUSE I WASN'T REALLY PAYING ATTENTION TO HIM THE WHOLE TIME AND ESPECIALLY WHEN HE CALLED CAUSE CUTE JAPANESE GUY WAS WALKING BY!! Not to mention i had just given my crush a "love letter" on Valentines day and he hasn't rejected or accepted me yet. He just seems to notice me more, i think. But anyway...back to me being super awkward and on the phone trying to give directions and get my friend to find me while cute Japanese guy was looking at me. I could hear my friends talking in the background behind me saying something like: "Yeah she thought he was attractive, but was too shy to say something." and the friend said something like: "Oh yeah he did too, but is also too shy to say it."

WAIT. HOLD UP. Did cute Japanese guy's friend just say that he found me attractive. WHAT THE EVERLOVING HECK?!?! HOW DID THIS EFFIN HAPPEN TO ME?! I REALLY ATTRACTIVE JAPANESE GUY THINKS IM CUTE?!!? What is life? I cant. im cry. 

So awkward convo was awkward  I even had to ask his name again. It was a mixture of broken Japanese and speaking English to his friend and his friend answering for him sorta. They walked off and i was flustered, but got up the courage to run after him and add me on Facebook. He was so surprised when I ran after him. UGGGGUUUUU HIS SMILE!!!!! ><

Yeah so i added him on FB and I found out his bday is Dec 25 (Christmas lol) 1990. And from his picture he posted of an airport, i figured out his here in Texas for business and only here for 2 months...or has only been here for 2 months. Still a little confused, but i know hes not a college student now. Just ahhhhhhh what. Idk where this will go or what will happen. Or about my crush too. Thankfully, he didn't get to see me interact with cute Japanese guy. But i still feel like I neglected him. IDK WHAT DO!! 

That guy!

OMG so there’s this guy that I had a lil baby crush on in my Eng 1320 class my Freshman year. We didn’t really talk much in the class, we were partners sometimes or peer review stuffs but we left it at that all the while I’m drooling over him cause hes a hot lil Asian guy  The semester after that we kept running into each other everywhere and we’d just say hi and he’d smile the biggest smile ever!! It’s not just the typical hi that guys do with like a nod or raising a hand or two fingers. NO! It’s like HUGE SMILE and “HEEEY!” and a WAVE (AND A LOT OF THE TIME HE’D DO A LITTLE SNICKER/HALF LAUGH THING). (●♡∀♡) Anyway, I had forgotten his name and I felt really bad for it each time I saw him. So one day I thought reaaaaaaally hard and tried to remember roll call in class and I remembered his name! So I looked him up on Facebook and I found him. We only had one friend in common and that was a Japanese exchange student that had already went back to Japan. Because of that and the fact that we didn’t have class anymore and we didn’t have a reason to see each other anymore I didn’t add him on Facebook.

Now, I’m in Statistics 3307 whatever blah…lol. There are two sections of this, 2pm and 5pm class. I’m in 5pm. There are also like 3 labs on Fridays at different times so at first I didn’t go to the earliest cause who wants to get up and go to a 9:30am lab on a Friday? But then it ended up to where I had to go to that one because I had club meetings on Fridays now. So the first time I go to the 9:30am lab…I look across the room and notice…HE’S IN THE LAB!! I’m like wow, this is great. (≧∇≦) I’ll keep coming to this one. So that first time he didn’t notice me. 

The next time I went to lab I’m in there on time instead of walking in late, so I’m sitting there telling my friend about this guy and then he walks in. He walks past us but doesn’t notice me and my friend’s like: “That’s him right?” and im like “Mhm” >< All through the lab I keep looking over at him and my friend keeps making fun of me. She’s like “You should just go up to him and talk to him after lab.” and im like: “No. He won’t remember me by now.” So after the lab is over I kind of take my time packing my things up and slowly get up hoping he notices me when he walks out…AND HE DOES!! As soon as he sees me his eyes light up and he smiles that beautiful big smile and says: “HEY! I didn’t know you were in this class.” And then he keeps talking to me for a bit. OMGASDFGHJKL; ヘ(>_<ヘ) HE STILL REMEMBERS ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~

And tonight, we just ran into each other at the Rec Center! asdfghjkl; Is this fate?!?! Σ(￣。￣ノ)ノ　He freakin did that smile/hey thing again. He’s killing me and I think he knows it. I hope he didn’t turn around and see my fangirling after he did that. I REALLY WANT TO ADD HIM ON FACEBOOK BUT IM SUCH A CREEPER!!!!!!! And then I was thinking about messaging him first, but then I thought that might be even sillier? IDK! WHAT EVEN. I CANT. (/ﾟДﾟ)/

…Sorry bout it. That is all. (ﾉ_ _)ﾉ

Too Fast.

This semester has gone by too fast.

The last time I blogged, I had just gotten back from my mission trip. Now it is the beginning of November and this semester is about to come to an end.
I really wish I would take more time to blog things. So many things have happened and I can't possibly put them all in one post. I'm trying to think of some of the more important things to blog about. ...Now I can't even remember why I decided to post again.

• I could blog about my classes...nope.
• about how I became President of NASA and how that's going...maybe later.
• about my love life like always...or the semi lack thereof
• about the new friends I've made...possible topic of another post
• about my new job...too boring and not very interesting. Might appear later tho
• about my awesome weekend in LA for a Big Bang concert...a definite topic for next time 

There's plenty of other things that have happened, I'm sure. But they're either not important enough to remember or I'll just mention them later when I remember them.
Basically, this post is to apologize to myself (and the possible audience interested in my personal life/thoughts) about my lack of posting. Also, it is to help me for my major. As a mass comm major I'm sure I'll have to be writing a lot more... unfortunately.
Until next time,
MMK

Summer Mission Trip Fort Worth: Let All the Earth Rejoice

This summer has been an experience of a lifetime. People have already begun to ask me what are some favorite things about this summer. Soon, I'll be answering all types of questions like this. This summer has flown by too fast and it's so hard to keep track of everything that's been happening. There is one aspect about this summer that'll never forget though. That is having the opportunity to visit different ethnic churches. I had the pleasure of being able to visit Korean, Nepali, 2 different Burmese, along with a few American churches as well. I have always wanted to be able to experience worshiping the same God with people of a different language and culture. I am very excited this dream came true for me this summer. Its awesome how people from all over the Earth worship the same God and rejoice for the same things.
Let all the Earth rejoice...
One particular church I had the pleasure of visiting was the Ebenezer Church for Chin-Burmese. I was invited here by a little girl, Rebecca, that I had befriended close to the beginning of the summer. I really have a heart for this girl and her family, they are just so sweet. Rebecca is 11 or 12 years old, she has an 8 year old brother,Moses, 17 year old brother, Samuel, and two older teenage sisters, Kim and Lun. Rebecca's family was a Match Grant client and finished their case after I had been here a while.

Rebecca and I

When I visited Rebecca and her family in their apartment on July 21st, I spent a long time getting to know them more. While I was there, they invited me to go to church with them the next day. 

Rebecca got to work the slides for the worship songs. 

Soon after arriving at the church, Rebecca and I sat together and were listening to English worship songs from the family cell phone. She also let me know that a guy that works at World Relief attends this church too, that would be the R&P caseworker Khai. That was a nice surprise to see him and his wife come in. Rebecca was asked to work the laptop that provides the lyrics for the worship service, so her and I left our spots to move to the front row. 

I was sort of surprised to see Khai go up to be a leader for the worship service. Also, Rebecca's older brother, Samuel, was the drummer for the worship band. 

 

I love seeing how people worship the Lord. Each and everyone has their own way of praise. With these Burmese people you can tell how broken they are by the way they worship. They close their eyes and praise him with all they've got. They overflow with joy. God has delivered them out of a broken land and into the USA where they can have a better life for themselves and even have a right to worship our God. 

Rebecca's mother, on the right in grey, praising the Lord.

One thing I've noticed in other cultures during church services is the prayers. Often times when they pray, they pray all together, out loud, at once. It sounds a little chaotic, but this way each person can pour out their heart to the Lord and make their prayers known to everyone. I have know idea what any of them are saying, but I can tell their gratefulness and brokenness all at the same time. The prayers from each person are loud and very sincere. I just know that they are sending up prayers about their broken homeland. It is a bittersweet feeling hearing all these prayers all at once.  

Rebecca's brother, Moses,
in the red and white striped shirt

 

After the service, they served a Burmese fish soup and the kids played games.

I'm very glad God gave me the opportunity to experience so many great things this summer. This family will always be in my heart and I love that the love the same God I do. We are still keeping in touch even though I am back home now. It breaks my heart that they say they miss me every day and wish I'd never left. I will make it a point to visit them as soon as I get a car. 

Summer Mission Trip Fort Worth: ASL to Deaf Refugees

The thought of using my ASL skills was a thought that never occurred in my head for this trip until a few weeks ago.

One of the other interns, Ken, at World Relief has a girlfriend here in Fort Worth. Soon after talking with her,Jenn, I discovered her passion for ASL and the deaf community. She has a deaf sister and it seems that her passion started from that. She works in the mission department of a church her in Fort Worth.
The next thing I know, I am helping her teach ASL to deaf refugees at Ladera, the apartments I'm staying at with most of the resettled refugees. There is also another guy named Kurt helping on Wednesdays that God has also brought along. So the three of us,along with Ken, teach ASL to some deaf Nepali people on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6-7:30pm. When we first all met up and lead the first successful class, afterwards we stood around and reveled in how great God is in bringing us all together like this without knowing each other before.

At first there were just three deaf Nepali guys, all middle aged or older. Then we discovered that two of them had wives who are also deaf. A big challenge is trying to get them all there at the same time where we meet in the World Relief clubhouse. We have decided to start getting there earlier so we can go and gather them together from their apartments. I had also discovered a Burmese girl that was deaf that had come to a play day for kids that a church youth group had put together. I kept trying to figure out where she lives to go and get her but I couldn't. Then one day she showed up with her family at the clubhouse for English class, but I couldn't be there to teach with Jenn that night. I called Jenn and told her to snag her when she gets there. Jenn let me know later that the girl did go to ASL with her and even seemed to pick a lot up and enjoy it. But since I've been there, she hasn't been back. Hopefully, we can find her again soon. Although, a new Nepali woman has been coming that's rather young looking. She has a walking impairment, but she is incredibly intelligent. She already knew quite a bit ASL her first time in the class. We were so surprised!

Overall, the classes have been fairly successful. Of course we have to use lots of visuals, but they seem to be catching on. The topics we have covered so far have been the alphabet, fruits, vegetables, colors, describing words (man, boy, woman, girl, tall, short...etc.),clothes, and names. I think they may be catching on to question words like who, what color, and which. On two occasions we have even had conversations about Jesus. Only through God could we have accomplished that. They seem to know a lot about the gospel even though they are all Hindu. I think one of them may be a believer, but its hard to tell. I pray that one day they can move on to sentences, but that is a very long way off and I won't be here.
It was sad to hear that these deaf refugees are a burden to people around here. The Nepali signs that they use are mostly gestures that are universal, so their skills of communicating, even with other Nepalis are limited. This is very big investment and I pray that Jenn and the others can fully accomplish this very difficult task that God has set before them.
~Meliah

Summer Mission Trip Ft Worth: Match Grant

Match Grant
...self proclaimed "best" department of World Relief- Ft. Worth office.
These people are really fun to work with once you get to know them.
Andrea Frick- program manager and my boss. She is just a really fun person that can be a bit sarcastic. I love her style of clothing and she always looks super cute. For a long time my task for her was trying to find a puppy online for her to adopt. Andrea recently graduated from UT-A with a Masters of Sociology. She also took a very difficult test and became licensed for social work practices. Most of the time we talk about make-up or girl stuff and puppies. We actually spent a lot of time trying to find a puppy for her to adopt. Last week she found one and now has a shepard mix named Gypsy! She is sooo cute! But besides the puppy business, she is actually a very focused and stern worker. She has a heart for serving and knows exactly how to work with the refugees and what to say to them. They usually trust her completely.
Robert Ortiz- Employment Specialist. Super sarcastic and a joker, but a really great guy. Engaged to a woman named Elise, whom I will soon meet. He works in Match by finding jobs for the  clients. Basically he is really helpful in getting the refugees self-sufficient because he helps them find their source of income. Even though he can be a prankster, he works hard advocating for refugees to employers trying to get them good steady jobs.
Bethany Toland- Married to Wes Toland who is in the church mobilization department. Bethany is a case worker for Match Grant, but what she is really passionate and trained for is Anti-Human Trafficking. She does sessions with people (like police) in the area to show them the signs of human trafficking and what to look for. She also leads orientations at the Ladera Palms World Relief clubhouse on safety and "stranger danger".
Rajan Biswa- A former Nepali translator that was recently hired on staff as a Match Grant case worker (still used for translations though). A few years ago, Rajan and his family were new refugees that even went through the Match Grant program. His English is almost flawless and he was apparently qualified for such a job like this at World Relief. He is a very sweet man and definitely on fire for God. He admits to not understanding the Bible even though he has read a lot of it. But that's ok, because God is not for the human mind to fully understand. He's also really quiet, but super nice and really smart.
Then there's me...
The first two or so weeks in Match Grant haven't been hard at all. I just come in and they tell me stuff to do for them. Most of it includes putting together case files, filing papers, and writing case notes or entering volunteer logs. I have been on errands and visits, but not by myself yet. I don't know how I feel about driving around here yet and well they don't make me go if I don't feel comfortable with driving. We have weekly Match Grant meetings on Fridays in the morning. The first thing they told me when i joined and at the first meeting is that last year their intern got a tattoo and they paid for it for her. They said they wanted that to be a Match intern tradition, but I have no interest in getting a tattoo. I told them they could dye my hair instead. Immediately, they decided on purple. I was ok with it until I realized and someone told me that I'd have to bleach my hair even more to get the color purple that would look cool. And that would kill my hair which is already damaged enough as it is. Christina the volunteer coordinator came into Match just to be my hair consultant. She says its not a good idea for my hair at this time, but when I suggested black with purple she ok-ed it. So I think that's whats been decided is black with a purple chunk or streaks.
We'll see...
It may seem like all we do is goof-off, but that's not it at all. These people are on fire for God and have a huge heart for missions and refugees. They do soooo much for them.That's all really to say about Match Grant...except that it is pretty dang awesome.
~Meliah~