New toast icon, reminiscing about Summer Conference 2000

I like this icon, haha. French toast is better than squid fried rice, after all. ;)



Before you ask, there IS no squid. That's merely an inside reference to the time when my friend Dylan was apparently SO bored that he sent an email to a bunch of his friends: "Eww, I can't believe my dad is making squid fried rice for breakfast! I'm making some French toast instead, thanks!" Then he got a bunch of replies back wondering JUST how bored he was, haha. *laugh*


I've been thinking about the last time we were at Summer Conference (2000) with a few churches.. yes, this was at Trinity as well. Some of us thought that the people from the Richmond church (Jen Louie in particular) were being too pushy, especially since Vancouver was the mother church. We joked that they should do as WE wanted them to! They wanted to impose their "early" bedtime on us, for example... so they told us that we were being too loud in the lounges! (cheh.. we'd never do that to THEM!)

Denise and Brian's sister Julie nicknamed Jen Louie after the first day... "Skeletor" for the way one of her eyes looked like something out of a horror movie. As Sean said later, children ARE generally honest! (even though it wasn't nice) Erin saw Jen at the sinks in the washroom later, and asked her why she was like a warden. (Anita's name for her) Jen just wanted to have the Richmond church's responsibilities (worship, etc.) go smoothly! But we came up with a few more nicknames for her anyhow: Zombie Girl, Butch Girl, and Sunken Eyes were the best / worst ones, depending on your perspective.

Speaking of people from the Richmond church, we had a bit of a problem with this dude named Chris Fong. It wasn't just that he sang like Kenneth, only with a WAY MORE annoyingly high / off-key voice. (at least Kenneth blends and harmonizes!) He wanted to introduce himself first before David or Vernon got a chance to do so, even if they were supposed to do it first... he had a major attitude problem! I got reacquainted with my friends Ryan C. (who'd just gotten engaged to Hana), Hana, Dora, Deanna, Tammy, Joanna Leung, Clarence, Cecilia (Clarence's sister), Doug Fung, Dorothy, and Brian Chan. I knew most of these people from junior high or old church times... Joanna's parents used to be church / family friends, and Brian's parents are still old family friends. Someone saw Brian Chan and Jen Louie making out in a stairwell... his mother Christine definitely didn't like her at all for some reason! We sympathized with her, even if our reasons were kinda based on what she looked like.. they're not together anymore, thank goodness. Yes, we were being too mean to her... sigh.

There was this one time Julie wanted to use the vending machines, so she asked me for help. Brian happened to be walking by, and told me: "Just choose FOR her!" (he thought she had much trouble making decisions) Seems Julie was confused by "too many options," but I figured that a 12-year-old should learn to use a vending machine, haha. At another time, little David was pointing at the vending machine when I was talking to him. I bought him a chocolate bar, and Auntie Ping (his mom) insisted on paying me back for it.. even though it was only a dollar!

I roomed with Anita, who kinda kept me up nights when she'd call her then-boyfriend Keith till 1 AM. That's just reminded me of what Sabrina said at the wedding banquet, since she could hear her sister chatting to Jeff late at night on the phone! Ah well, what can you do? (Mom asked if Keith was invited to the wedding... uh, we don't think they could be friends after the circumstances of their breakup!)

The food was terrible! Powdered eggs, sour juice, runny ketchup, mushy fruit, mediocre hamburgers and hot dogs, etc. The only good thing were the store-bought pastries! We all bashed the food, and Fidela even tried to chew a medicine tablet to avoid drinking anything with it... but it was SO not chewable! It got so bad that Denise phoned Jon's cell at lunch during the second day since he had to go back into town to play a Canada Day gig with his friends Sean (a different one) and Rob. He had his cell on, thank goodness... and brought back pizza for everyone! (there's also an embarrassing story involving Erin and pads here, but I won't tell it...) Since that was so successful, someone ordered even more pizza the next night for whoever happened to be in the lounge. Good times... but we were very happy to eat lunch at a Chinese restaurant after we all cleared outta there on Monday morning since they had GOOD-TASTING REAL FOOD. My mom thinks the food situation will be worse this time around, due to contracting stuff out to Sodexho... I hope not, but she may be right!

There was plenty of time spent just talking in groups late at night when we were kinda supposed to be asleep. Eddie asked Julie whether Brian ever practiced any wrestling moves on her... Julie just gave him a weird look. We played a lot of card games: Bum, Big Two, Go Fish, etc. (or just talked about life / Hon dropping by with his sister Cien / church / Sean's "dirty" stories, "dirty sex talk," and "turning it on" / "turning the knob" in particular!) Eddie informed us that his bed collapsed.. luckily he wasn't sleeping in it at the time!

The kids just went around on scooters sometimes.. it was fun to watch. Hannah called my vest a jacket once, haha. (she WAS only four at the time, haha) Alan kept on falling asleep anytime anywhere, and of course denied it. Denise once told him that he couldn't deny falling asleep during worship once, since I'd been on his other side, and she believed me more! Once, Jon put SIX PACKS OF SUGAR into his coffee at lunch... someone said: "One word, Jon... diabetes!" (he just laughed it off, haha.. no high from sugar, just an extreme liking for Slurpees!) Trudy's brother Ryan wanted to know who Vernon was going out with, so we gave him all sorts of hints. (short, a pastor's daughter, part of a set...) Someone even asked, "How many twins do we HAVE?!" Then he guessed Ellen's brothers Andrew and Brian! o_O That was just WRONG, and showed how little he actually came to church! (Frances even asked him if he DID go to church, so we told her that he was Trudy and Marco's brother.. she knew who they were, at least!)

Ah, it was mostly good times, though! We'll see what Summer Conference 2005 is like...