Lead, Kindly Light

This is a repeat for some of you…but I just had to post it on this blog.

I learned early last semester that my new co-workers had a diverse array of hobbies outside of law school, including inexplicable fascinations with public transportation, addiction to sleep, past careers in acting, knitting, and drawing. My list of interests included baking.

Having discovered early on that we’re a multi-talented bunch, some of us have decided to enjoy the fruits of each others’ labors by bartering our skills and talents in an informal marketplace–in the computer lab of our office. Between tapping out motions, making endless phone calls to clients, conducting joint strategy sessions, and going on long investigations together–we’ve been setting up trades.

It all started when one of our girls agreed to teach one of our guys how to cook an authentic Indian meal – and in turn, he agreed to knit a hat for her. In December, I saw her wearing the completed hat, and loved it – and promptly asked him if I could join in the marketplace. We agreed that I would make him a cheesecake and he would knit a hat for me.

I picked out a pattern, and he delivered the alpaca wool hat within two weeks. Amazing!

So it was my turn to deliver on the deal. Another student attorney (with whom I’ve already brokered the “Great Trade of 2008″ – trading a pork chop dinner for him and his family, in exchange for a plate drawing of Chief Justice John Roberts) had it right when he said, “Law school can be a deadening experience; we need these hobbies to keep us sane.” I can’t say that law school has been deadening for me, but I certainly do need my baking therapy for other reasons. And this week, I’ve spent a lot of time working on my final paper [all those yellow pieces of paper are various points of analysis for my paper, and they're arranged so I can logically piece together strands of the legal landscape] – and today was a good time for a baking break.

So – today I made my strawberry cheesecake for the Great Trade of 2007, which he will pick up tomorrow morning. It was great fun to make this recipe (listed below), and I even took photographs along the way – I found out a while ago that some readers of this blog have tried my recipes, so hopefully some of these helpful hints will help you along the way.

First, here’s the recipe for strawberry cheesecake -

• 1 cup chocolate cookie crumbs
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 16 oz frozen sweetened strawberries, thawed
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 3 – 8 ounce packages cream cheese, softened
• 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 3 eggs
  

1. 1. In a medium bowl, mix together cookie crumbs [I used Oreo cookies with the cream scraped out], 3 tablespoons sugar, and melted butter. Press mixture into the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan. Refrigerate for half an hour.
   2. Combine strawberries and cornstarch; pour into a saucepan; bring to a boil. Boil and stir for 2 minutes.
   3. In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in condensed milk.
   4. Add eggs, beat on low just until combined.
   5. Pour half of the cream cheese mixture over crust. Drop half of the reserved strawberry mixture by 1/2 teaspoonfuls onto cream cheese layer. Carefully spoon remaining cream cheese mixture over sauce. Drop remaining strawberry sauce by 1/2 teaspoonfuls on top. With a knife, cut through top layer only to swirl strawberry sauce.
   6. Bake at 325 degrees F for 45-50 minutes or until center is almost set. Carefully run a knife around edge of pan to loosen; cool 1 hour longer in oven or on rack away from drafts.
   7. Refrigerate overnight. Remove side of pan. Store in the refrigerator.

And….some fun (and hopefully helpful) tips -

Tip #1 - the strawberry sauce needs to cool down after you cook it, so that you can swirl it around in the cream cheese batter. The recipe originally said to refrigerate the sauce, but I think that’s way too slow. I remember from AP Chemistry class that water conducts heat faster than air – so I put the pot of strawberry sauce in a larger pot, and fill the larger pot with water. Then, to keep that water cold, I put a bag of frozen vegetables in the water. This cools the sauce a lot faster, so that by the time you’re done with the cream cheese batter, it’s ready to go!

Tip #2 - This is how to get crumbs out of cookies on a student’s budget. For the chocolate cookie crust, I bought this package of Mini Oreos (they were on sale, so cheaper than the big package of Oreos), scraped out all the filling, and put all the cookie “shells” back into the bag. Then I rolled a glass over the cookies to crush them. No mess, and no funky tools necessary!

Tip #3 - refrigerate that cookie crumb crust after you make it, so it will solidify and be ready to be topped with the rest of the batter

Tip #4 - Use cream cheese and eggs that are at room temperature. If you get up late in the morning like me and therefore don’t get the ingredients out of the refrigerator until 9am (and you want to make the cheesecake at noon), put the cream cheese on the stove as you’re cooking the strawberry sauce. The nearby surface will be warm enough to heat the cream cheese more, without cooking it.

Tip #5 - From all my website research, apparently one of the biggest complaints about cheesecake baking is that the cakes crack. To prevent that, add some cornstarch to the cream cheese batter. A tablespoon or two should do the trick.

Tip #6 - cube that cream cheese before you beat it. That will make it easier to break everything down so that you don’t have to beat the mixture as long. Less beating decreases the chances for cracking.

Tip #7 - take time to appreciate the beauty in baking. Look at that batter swirling around – so pretty! Baking should be fun. Don’t take it too seriously.

Tip #8 - people always ask me how I make the swirls on my cheesecake. It’s so simple. Just drop spoonfuls of fruit sauce on the top, then run a knife through to spread it around. It will come out looking all swirly and professional-ish. Ha.

Tip #9 - A water bath (bain-marie) is very important when making cheesecakes! Again, it prevents cracking, and it helps the cheesecake bake evenly. Theoretically a water bath involves putting the entire springform pan IN another pan that’s filled with water. But, if you’re on a student’s budget and living in a student’s kitchen (as I am), you don’t have that option because none of your pans are large enough to accommodate the springform pan.

Never to fear! We lawyers are in the problem-solving business. A nice substitute that at least provides the moist environment in the oven is the trick of putting a 9×13 pan filled with water on the bottom rack while your cheesecake cooks on the middle rack. This has worked for me twice already – no cracks on either cheesecake.

Tip #10 - listen to good music while baking. For me, it was Lee Hom Wang (nothing like a good round of Chinese hip hop to serve as a baking therapy soundtrack) and then a set of Jay Chou. A happy baker always produces better results.

And that, dear readers, was the Great Trade of 2007.

I read a hilarious article on Slate this afternoon. I share excerpts with you below – mainly, I edited the list of Unanswered Questions from 2007 and pared it down to the ones I thought were funniest. I can’t believe people actually ask this stuff. Well…yes I can.

Enjoy!

Another year of Explaining is drawing to a close. Over the last 12 months, regular readers of the column learned what to do when confronted by a gun-toting madman, how to fight off a band of bloodthirsty monkeys, and why the camera adds 10 pounds.

But for every reader question we managed to answer, 50 more arrived in the Explainer inbox. By year’s end, these numbered in the thousands. Today, the Explainer renews a holiday tradition and presents an assortment of inquiries culled from our voluminous backlog, which Slate felt ill-equipped or unwilling to answer in 2007.

The Explainer’s Unanswered Questions From 2007

• Mitt Romney is running for president. His father, George Romney, a former governor of Michigan, ran for president in 1968. Is “Mitt” named for the mitten-shape of Michigan?

• Why are some cats softer to the touch than others? Is it possible I have the softest cat in the world?

• Why don’t we drop medical waste and nuclear waste into active volcanoes, the “ultimate high-temperature incinerators”?

• Hello. I am an editor and writer and I would like for everyone to change some letters that are now in lowercase to uppercase. An example would be the 18th century to the 18th Century. Where does one go about starting to do this?

• Is it “open sees me” or “open says me”?

• Why does having a foreign accent make a person seem more attractive?

• How often are presidents born, and how often do they die? Do they die in bunches, or on average every four years?

• What infections do viruses and microorganisms suffer from? My guess is none. They only suffer from random mutations and suffering caused (mostly by humans) by chemicals.

• If mountains are measured from sea level, then the 12,000-foot peaks in Colorado are only about 7,000 feet above Denver since they lie on a 5,000-foot-high plain. That being so, a one-foot rock lying on the ground becomes a 5,001-foot-high mountain. Do we need to address this differently, if it really matters at all?

• This may be a dumb question. Most people spell their names as first name, middle initial, and last name. But some people spell their name as initial, given name, and then last name. Is the initial before the given name their first name, and they go by their middle name? Or is the initial before the given name their middle initial? If it is their middle initial, why would you put it before your first name, because then it is not in the middle anymore? It seems like conservatives or Republicans are more likely to list their name starting with an initial.

• Which is the best hearing aid? Why are there so many different ones, and are the ones that allow you to hear others’ conversations across the room legal?

Check out the answer to the 2006 Question of the Year: Can a bar of soap get dirty, or is it self-cleaning because it’s soap?

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2179944/

There’s a catchy song by Avalon called “The Dreams I Dream For You” (listen to it on esnips here) – it’s sung from the perspective of God, as He might speak to His children. The lyrics are below -

You taste the tears
You’re lost in sorrow
You see your yesterdays
I see tomorrow

You see the darkness
I see the spark
You know your failures
But I know your heart

The dreams I dream for you
Are deeper than the ones you’re clinging to
More precious than the finest things you knew
And truer than the treasures you pursue
Let the old dreams die
Like stars that fade from view
Then take the cup I offer
And drink deeply of
The dreams I dream for you

You see your shame
But I see your glory
You’ve read one page
I know the story

I hold a vision
That you’ll become
As you grow into the truth
As you learn to walk in love

Let the old dreams die
Like stars that fade from view
Then take the cup I offer
And drink deeply of
The dreams I dream for you

Today God gave us a very lovely day weather-wise. It was somewhere between 50 and 60 degrees (F), and especially after the near-zero temps that we’d had just last week, today’s sunshine and breeze felt like a warm and fresh hug from heaven. It looked and felt like spring, and I felt God’s compassion on all of us in this town through His grant of such a beautiful day.

My spirits were lifted, and I found that there was a new spring in my step as I wandered about town accomplishing various tasks throughout the day. In the past week I had been contemplating my deeper cynicisms that developed as a result of various events in the last year/couple of years.

I’ve noted a strange juxtaposition in my spiritual state. All at once, I believe very strongly in a loving and powerful God. I believe He is full of compassion and mercy and tenderness, and at the same time He is infinitely strong and capable of doing absolutely anything. In all of this, He is also holy – perfect and righteous, and He defines goodness, purity, justice, and love. That’s the God I believe in.

Yet at the same time, on semi-frequent occasions in the past few months, I have had trouble relating to God on a personal level. The Bible teaches that our God is a personal one, and He interacts with each human on an individual level. When we believe in Jesus, we enter into a personal relationship with Him – and in this way, any person who believes in Jesus can know Him and be personally known by Him. I get this – but sometimes it’s hard to feel like He is invested in my life.

Sometimes I have felt like my life is a futile effort. I can’t see how the puzzle pieces fit together. There have been beautiful triumphs in my life, but there have also been a significant number of deep disappointments, grave defeats, and desperate failures. There are choices that I regret, days I wish I hadn’t lived through, and wounds that still scar my spirit. It’s because of these things that I can certainly relate to the parts of the song that say, “You taste the tears / you’re lost in sorrow / you see your yesterdays… You see the darkness… you know your failures…” This is my view of life as of late – not all the time, but a lot of the time. I am less certain now than ever before that my life will, in the end, mean much at all.

Yet when I listen to this song, as I did today – and when I experience gifts of sunshine and warmth that seem to come out of nowhere (let’s be honest – since when has this city seen 60-degree weather in January?!) – I am reminded that it’s true that (as the song says) – the dawn will break sometime. Indeed, I have only read one page of my life, but God knows the story. I know my failures, but God knows my heart. I see all the hurts and pains of so many dark yesterdays, but God sees the spark in my tomorrows.

The key is to let go of the dreams that I have for myself, and let Him dream His dreams for me. His dreams must be better than mine. After all, He’s God, and I’m not!

In Jeremiah 33:3, God says, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” I’m thanking God for the reminder of that today – that when I call, He will answer. And He holds all the future, mine and everyone else’s, in His mighty hands and strength, and in His wisdom He can deliver each of His children (myself included!) to a place where they are fulfilling HIS purposes for their lives. If only we will seek His face, pursue His heart, run after Him, and obey.

So may it be.

This evening as I was making dinner, I flipped the television on. I’m not used to watching the telly, as I made it through most of college and law school without having one in my room [and when I did, it always belonged to a roommate]. But once in a while now, I like to sit down and see what’s going on.

I had to chuckle a bit at what I encountered.

*flip TV on*

See Hilary Clinton ad

*change channels*

See Barack Obama ad

*change channels*

See John Edwards ad.

Literally three in a row, just like that. I guess it means the New Hampshire primaries are coming up soon!

I’ve figured out my New Year’s resolution.

Today, while chatting with a dear friend about our spiritual lives, I confessed to her that my nightly times of reading the Bible and prayer have lost depth and richness most recently. December was a very trying month for me, one in which I spent weeks in a row crying to God and just clinging to faith that He would carry us all through the trials before us.  And He did… and now that times are better, I find myself being more blase about meeting Him and being fully “there” when I come to speak to Him. This is not a good thing.

My friend and I commiserated about our futures at large law firms, and how the work will be fruitful in its own way, but certainly not spiritually enriching. We wondered what damage that might cause to our spiritual lives – since it will soak up so much of our time and energy. Would we just run through our lives – devoting the best of our resources, physical and mental, to our work? In the process, would we lose sight of our greater callings from God? How could we keep perspective?

That’s why I have resolved to set aside twenty minutes in the midst of each workday to pray. It will force me to slow down, to entrust my time to God, to deliberately bring before Him my day as I go through it (not just at the beginning or the end, or in tiny snippets here and there throughout the day), to stop and ask Him to guide me through that day and through life. It will take getting used to, but it will be well worth the investment.

And originally I told my friend I would start this when I begin working at the firm. But – then I thought the better of it… why not start now and build the habit, so that when I start work, it’s already an integral part of my day? When I was a child – in January 1997 – I made a New Year’s resolution to read my Bible every day. I was still a teenager then, but it wasn’t too early to get started on a good habit that has since been maintained as life has gotten busier and busier. The tactic worked then – it will probably work now.

So… that’s my new year’s resolution. Feel free to hold me accountable – ask me about it, make sure I’m keeping up! I’d appreciate that.  

We’re only four days into the new year, so it’s not too late to submit some thoughts about the year we’re leaving behind.

2007 was a very eventful year.

Highlights

I went to China for the first time in my life over spring break through a student organization at school. This trip was a very big deal, as it healed a lot of the hurts that developed as a result of my upbringing in a relatively Asian-less community. It was a tremendous experience to visit the nation of my “ancestral home” (that’s what they’re calling Kenya for Barack, so I’m just adopting that terminology), and to come to grips with how Chinese – and how American – I really am. Plus, I made a number of good friends on the trip.

Successfully interned at a large firm in the City. Wrote some stuff that was submitted to the court (barely edited) as part of a larger brief. Got good reviews from people for whom I worked. Enjoyed (at times, a bit blushingly) a ridiculously lavish firm-sponsored life – $70 lunches, $150 dinners, four Broadway shows in seven days, weekly manicures and pedicures, three business trips to Los Angeles/Nashville/DC in nine days….  More importantly, made some good friends at the firm – these folks will certainly make those long hours a bit easier in the future.

Started legal defense work here at school as part of a clinical program. This experience has been only 60% pleasant, but it is 85% fascinating, 100% challenging, and 110% helpful experience, so it still counts as a highlight.

Went home five times. It’s always good to see my parents. Home is a place of comfort, love, and endless goofiness. A place to let my guard down (mostly) and relax and experience the kind of extravagant love that only parents can give. My parents do it well.

Praise God, my dad made it through his surgery. And we’re all learning something about the brevity and uncertainty of life.

Miscellaneous little victories: >>>I’ve retained my memory of most of the guitar chords I learned [C, Cm, E, Em, C2, Dsus, D, A, Am, F#m, C#m, cheater Bm, G, F] since picking up guitar in March 2006–even though I hardly ever practice. I should practice more. >>> Started another blog! >>> Through practice, I became a better digital photographer. Even though I only have a 2.0 megapixel camera, people say come up with some pretty nice pictures. >>> Since moving into this new apartment, I have made my bed (nearly) every day! This is a new record. >>> My Chinese is improving! And I’ve learned entire sets of lyrics to a number of Chinese songs ["Jian Dan Ai" by Jay Chou, "Jiu Shi Ai Ni" by David Tao, "Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin" by Teresa Tang, and working on a number of others].

Lowlights

Too many surprise deaths. Two of my friends lost brothers who had been serving in the Army and Air Force, respectively. Both were in their late twenties or early thirties. Another friend lost her sister (age 24) to a very brief and unexpected battle with cancer. This – together with other events from last year – has accumulated to make 2007 the year I became more cynical about life. Maybe that means it’s the year that I started to really grow up. Maybe it marks the year I lost my naivete. Whatever you want to call it, a significant burden has depressed my natural tendencies to be very hopeful and optimistic in this life. I now expect grief, I anticipate nasty surprises around most corners, and long ever the more for Christ’s return. Only He can make everything right again.

A bad year in the relationships department. The good relationship went down the drain because I was of the wrong race. Thankfully, he and I will probably still be able to be friends – that’s excellent, though still a bit sad how it all went down. The other relationship ended up being a lesson in how I do not ever want to be treated again in my life. I actually had a dream about this person last night – and even in my dream, he was treating me like a disposable something. Even after I woke up, I was upset – not because of what happened in the dream, but because the dream reflected reality. And I couldn’t stomach the fact that I had allowed myself to be treated so poorly. I read a quote today from Thomas Fuller – “Some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run away.” Well, maybe at the time I thought I was being brave and sacrificial and compromising. Now I see that I was simply wrong. I should have given up on that losing fight much earlier. Anyways, no good, no good.

The Jury Is Still Out

Not sure if this is a lowlight or a highlight, but I recently discovered that I tend to talk like a post-modern more and more. I don’t know if that’s because I came out East to this University, a “hotbed of liberals.” Or if I’ve just genuinely adopted a different worldview. But this is not who I was five years ago… slowly I’ve been inching into “Most things are gray” mode. Pretty much the Gospel of Jesus Christ and all related doctrines are the only things I’ll say are absolute. Everything else – I’m pretty loosey-goosey about. Secretly, I like being a post-modern.

So that was 2007 – a pretty sober review of it, no? I think it was a pretty decent year… certainly there were plenty of good times of cheer and joy. But there were many tears and lots of damage done to my heart and faith in life and people. I’m still on the mend, still healing, still in recovery. May 2008 bring better times.

I received the following email from an old friend from high school this afternoon. She’s referencing something I wrote for her about seven years ago. This message brought a smile to my face and warmed my heart.

“I’m at home cleaning out my room…do you remember giving me your chemistry notebook? You lent me some kind of notebook that I ripped a few sheets out of and saved. You doodled “TO TARISA” and then a poem with a lot of words/lines crossed out, lots of notes and doodles on the side. I don’t think you ever intended me to see it (at least this version). I thought it was really neat and beautiful. I never told you that I found or saved this, but now seems as good of a time as any. Thank you.

Though we are very different
I’m sure we’ve often felt the same -
Disappointed, disillusioned,
A cheated player in the game,
Disheartened by the victories
that others deem as loss
misunderstood by the people
whose paths we daily cross.
Truly… the journey may grow tiresome:
but this is what I’ve learned.
“No winter lasts forever;
no spring ever skips its turn.”
Though it often well may seem
that you must wander farther
and struggle through more trials
it only makes you stronger.
Doubt not even for a moment
that grace will one day
And lead you to your place
And the wait will be worthwhile.

I’m finally back from my New Year’s jaunt into the City. More on that later… for now, a brief observation about the new year – though please pardon any lack of coherence, as I only got four hours of sleep last night and not many more the night before. My trips into the City are always abusive on my system in terms of sleep…. too many friends to see, to many things to do, too many conversations to engage in!

Anyways – on to my main point. I was in the subway station tonight when I saw a sign reading the day’s date: “January 2, 2008.”

A little shiver went down my spine. 2008 is a significant year for me, and one for which I’ve been waiting for many years. For the last sixteen years, I’ve waited for this year to arrive – because it’s the year I’ll be graduating from law school. As a little girl, I dreamed of becoming a lawyer, and I knew that if everything went according to plan, I’d earn my law degree eight years into the twenty-first century.

The 1990s creeped into Y2K, and we slowly made our way through the early 2000s. And here we are in The Year. It’s finally here at last.