| Will to survive... |
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| Thursday, January 30, 2003 Hmm, I'm not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing to be sick... when I feel light headed I don't really think as much and I just move on in the emptiness. Well, I guess it depends on the situation, when I really need to think I'll be in a bad position when I'm sick. But when it comes down to it, I really really hate being sick because my nose gets all stuffed up and my voice gets all nasty. Monday, January 28, 2003 A line from the latest McDonalds commercial: "People come to McDonalds for billions of reasons. One of them is the McRib Sandwich, available only for a limited time." I'd like to call the McDonalds corporation and ask them "so, your commercial states that one of the "billions" of reasons for going to McDonalds is the McRib Sandwich, but I'd like to know what the rest of the 999,999,999 reasons are." Sunday, Januray 27, 2003 Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.................... Perhaps one of man's greatest medicine may be Menthol Chloraseptic. It works wonders for sore throats. You spray it inside your mouth and it basically numbs everything it touches, so you don't feel the sore throat pain when you swallow. Why didn't I discover this before? So I'm estimating that I get sick about.. 3 times a year, and my sicknesses last about 2 weeks. So in a year I get about six weeks of sickness, and so far I've accumulated approximately 130 weeks, or 910 days of sickness. If I had discovered this medicine sooner, I could have saved myself 910 days of throat pains... But the good news is, let's say I live to be at least 70. Since I am 23 now, I would theorecitally have a good 50 more years to live, which would accumulate around 300 weeks of sickness, or 2100 days. So by using this medicine now and knowing to take it whenever I get sick, I have saved myself 2100 days of sore throat pains. That ain't too shabby hahahaha. Okay, time to recuperate. Friday, January 25, 2003 I feel a cold coming on. I feel like I have a dagger plunged into my throat. Very unpleasant. Tuesday, January 22, 2003 Music has a funny way of drawing out all sorts of emotions out of people... even the ones that you bind in the deepest and most hidden part of your heart.. it doesn't even have to be in the lyrics. You listen to a certain progression of melodies and notes by some instrument and all of a sudden you feel like bursting up in tears. And even from hearing some simple humming you start to get goosebumps all over. It seems as if we make ourselves so vulnerable to our own emotions when we are lost in music. Monday, January 21, 2003 In the naaaame of love, what more in the name of love??? ... Early morning April 4, shot rings out in the Memphis sky, free at last, they took your life, but they could not take your pride... The above are lines from one of my favorite songs, "Pride" by U2, which was written as a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. As much as I love the movie Moulin Rouge, the movie will forever have a huge stain in my eyes because they use the line from this song, "in the name of love, one night in the name of love." Such dispicable sin cannot go unforgiven... how dare they take a U2 song and use it in that kind of context!!! Anyhow, I think I could make the bold claim of declaring today as "the best Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday of my life so far" hahaha. I went out to dinner with Jessica, Anne, and Alice to Souplantation and made some scenes with our obnoxiously loud laughters hahahaha. I felt kind of bad for the people who were sitting in our area, but whatever. At one point we were talking about the different kinds of road rage, and the girls started imagining what kind of road rage I would show (IF I had any at all haha) and then they started coming up with all these outrageous scenarios where I would get super angry at other cars. So they decided that I have the worst road rage out of all of us. Then they started laughing and told me they would put that in their xanga sites, grrr... But for the record, I would like to say that I do not have road rage!! Hahaha. =) Saturday, January 19, 2003 For those of you who have noticed that I haven't had many quotes of the day for a while, it's not that my creative juices haven't been flowing, but it's just that I don't like to repeat the same material over and over. Read the "In Defense of the Corny" section for a better explanation if you don't know already. Also, I like to look for appropriate timing and I want to be able to connect as much as I can with the target audience. Trust me, during any conversation I have with anyone, I come up with plenty of things I could say, but I don't because I feel it won't have much impact due to one reason or another. I like my quotes to be "impactive" when I say it. But today, I have a quote I could actually post, so without further ado, here is the first "quote of the day" of 2003. Quote of the day: -Cleaning up at Gardena Academy- Isaac: Hey, I didn't know we had Jenga here! Mike: Well, don't all of you guys have "Jenga" sites? (xanga) Friday, January 18, 2003 In many ways this week was extremely special. I was very blessed by many people. At the same time there were so many intense things going on with my mind and the situations that went on in people's lives. War is something that really really scares me. I love to read about it and I love analyzing past wars, but the thought of real life war now and in reality, it's a very frightening thought. I don't like to see people die. Regardless of whether they are friends or relatives or enemies... but I guess it's a really naive way of thinking.. if there is an evil in the world, they need to be stopped... but where do you draw the line? Sometimes I feel as if America is like a big bully. Is it absolutely necessary to regulate the world through force? Is this some kind of ploy to get the economy rolling? Or do they really feel a legitimate threat from the middle east? I don't want anyone to become a victim.. I don't like the fact that people die in war. Can't they like settle it through a boxing or wrestling match or something? Like, a way to satisfy the hunger for violence, but no one ends up dying...? Wednesday, January 16, 2003 "Ignorance is bliss" is a phrase that used to be the backbone of the way I lived my life. I don't like to share my problems with people, and I don't like to hear about other people's problems. To each man his own, so to speak. But it seems like things just turned out in a way where I could no longer ignore things anymore. The world just doesn't work that way. God could have made humans perfect, but if that were so they would never depend on each other... what's the point of living if you are capable of doing everything on your own? President Bush declared today as the "National Sanctity of Human Life Day" to send a message that goes somewhere along the lines of how abortion needs to tone down in America. But what caught my eye was what the abortion rights activists stated in response to this event, where they started going off about how Bush is waging a war against women and taking away their rights. Ugh.. not only are these faminazis just trying to pick a fight and make a pathetic attempt at winning the public's sympathy, they're also extremely self-centered: "This administration for two years has waged war against women... [president Bush] has tried to elevate the rights of the fetus above the rights of women, and that's a tragedy." Okay, so basically, these "rights" of women this lady is talking about would include a woman's right to KILL??? I don't really consider myself a major Bush supporter, but if I were running this country and I had to take a stance between a fetus's right to LIVE and a woman's right to KILL that fetus, hmm.. I think I would choose the right to live. And this lady has the audacity to call that a TRAGEDY??? OMG, you know what the real tragedy is? It's that people like you are so caught up in your mission to make yourselves gods of the world, when you could be using that time and energy to make a positive difference for the world. Okay, so how far do we have to go in order to make you feminazis happy??? Should we make idols of the president of the feminist movement of America and offer sacrifices to it every night??? Would you still be unsatisfied even if we treated you like gods??? Oh, but treating you like gods is like saying that women are dependent on praise, and that wouldn't be something to describe an "independent woman," right? Oh oops, did I say gods? I mean "goddesses." But then again, "goddess" is also a derogatory term for you feminazis, right? Because acording to classic mythology, the goddesses were under the highest god, Zeus, which means that calling you a "goddess" puts you at a lower level than men. Sheesh. Anyways. I don't think I will ever come to terms with politics... republicans fight against abortion, yet they favor the death sentence. And democrats are pro-choice, but they reject the death sentence law... ...... ...... ...... ...... Ugh, my head hurts. Monday, January 14, 2003 This is something I've talked a little about before, but after playing basketball on Sunday night, I want to add some more emphasis to it. I realized exactly why I don't like playing basketball with Asian guys who think they're hot stuff. Or just playing basketball with any group of males in general. Well, I've always thought that it is entertaining to watch or hear people who have anger management problems. Especially people who seemingly on purpose, make it soooo obvious to the people around them that they are mad. It's like ooookay, I see that you really need to proclaim to the world, "I am mad, so everyone look at me and fear me, for I have absolutely no self control and need to hide behind some kind of front when I feel threatened." Not only are you turning the whole atmosphere into an awkward one, you lose all sorts of credibility with people who have at least a small sense of reason (people with anger issues aren't exactly known for their consistency or steadiness with a lot of things in life). But anyways, back to basektball. As entertaining as it is to watch the horrendously unintelligent dialogue at times when raging hormones reach their peak, it becomes way too annoying. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for friendly trash talking - it makes the game a lot more fun and enjoyable. HOWEVER, when all the talking and body language doesn't become so friendly, you begin to see just how lame some guys could get when it comes to controlling their emotions. All the bickering and whining and griping about whether something was a foul or not, blaming teammates and picking fights with everyone because you don't like to hear people criticizing you, etc etc. People say that the worst of humanity comes out during times of war. Well, I would actually argue that the worst and the most horrendous embarrassments of humanity, particularly with the male gender, can be conveniently displayed at your local street basketball game. At least with war, there is a cause involved that is the backbone of each side that is fighting, regardless of whether they are right or wrong. What you see at a pickup basketball game at your local park at times, it's just plain stupidity, and a flawless display of irrational thinking and behavior. Hmmmm... this actually gives me an idea... I could go around to various parks and record all the dumb things that go on in your typical street ball game on my camcorder and complie them all into a blockbuster documentary hahahah. But don't get me wrong, I love the game of basketball. When I play with people who know how to control their anger but stay fiercely competitive at the same time, it's one of the most fun and satisfying things I could ever do with a group of guys. Thursday, January 9, 2003 A jumbo jack and two tacos... is there a better way to spend two dollars on food??? It's hard to read or watch the news these days because of all this talk of war... it makes me so sad how all this is taking place. And on top of that, there's so much crap going on in North and South Korea. Sigh... whenever I log on to cnn.com I've made a habit of playing "All You Need Is Love" by the Beatles on iTunes before I start reading. Yes, John Lenon, you definitely hit the mark. All you need is love. Okay enough of my hippie talk hahaha. Speaking of artists, let me tell you about my college roommate, Jonsport. This guy is a natural poet. You don't find a lot of people with his type of poetic expression in the Korean American community. He wasn't even an English major. Actually, English majors don't really learn how to write poetry.. they just learn how to explicate and analyze them and turn that into a 5, 8, 10, 15 page essay. UCLA actually has a creative writing branch of the English major, but I didn't really want to get into it.. oh well, nothing I could do about it now. Basically, I don't know how to write good poetry, but I do know how to recognize good/bad poetry and break each element apart in horrendously detailed and convincing ways. Only if I could turn all my analytical essays into songs... hahahaha. Speaking of UCLA... SIGH!!! It's been a horredous run for UCLA football and basketball the past 3-4 years. Well, basketball was pretty decent, since we made the sweet-16 each time during March Madness. But UCLA athletics has definitely lost its glorious reign and its status as a consistent powerhouse in the West Coast since the time the football team lost to Miami in my freshman year. Dude, we were supposed to win the national championship that year... ugh. Anyways, here is my opinoin on why this is happening. UCLA is way too much fun. Seriously. There are WAY too many things to do in Westwood. It's safe to go outside at night, and there is something to do at any given time of day/night. And on top of that, UCLA is a glamorous school with its fair share of the beautiful and hideous looking people (whereas some schools are stuck with a majority of ugly people in their population), so it's way too easy for athletes to get distracted. So UCLA athletes are basically asked to meet the extremely high standards and expectations of excellence, which means they would have to ignore the distractions that come with being a UCLA student for the most part. And that's VERY hard to do, and they're all giving in. Wednesday, January 8, 2003 Today was sort of a day off from any kind of "work" so I decided to rest and do some things I wanted to do on the side. I paid a visit to Ricky and Janette's apartment and spent some time with them. I missed them sooo much, and I wanted to share with them the things that happened in the course of the past couple months. And as usual, they showered me with their wisdom and when it was time for me to go, they sent me off with their blessing. Then I stopped by Sara Park's apartment to pick up my books that she borrowed. Then finally, I went to Jinny's apartment and we spent some time sharing our lives and encouraging each other. It was a tremendously uplifting day for me, and I really needed it. I was going through my usual nightly reading and browsing of cnn.com and I saw an article that talked about the American Civil War, and the historical reputations of its key generals, Ulysses Grant and Robert E. Lee. The article stated that the popular notion of Grant being a barbaric, unthinking general while Lee was the master tactician who won a lot of battles with a smaller army, is false. According to the writer of that arcitle, Grant was just as much of a master tactician as Lee, referring to several key battles where Grant used strategic maneuvering and positioning of his armies to gain significant ground against the South. Very intriguing. And if you're a geek like me, you might be interested in reading the full article, so here is the link: http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/books/01/08/wkd.grant.vs.lee.ap/index.html Lastly, can I just say that Entertainment Tonight on CBS is the most horrendously annoying show ever??? Hahaha. In the first segment of the show, they give you previews of all the stuff they are going to show to the viewers: Exclusive clips from the second season of American Idol, interview with Joe Millionaire, something about George Clooney, Catherine Zeta Jones, and I don't remember the rest. What reeeeallly bugged me was the fact that they use each segment of the show to reveal bits and pieces of every story without finishing any of it. I guess this is their strategy to keep everyone watching the show from beginning to end, but I think they fail to realize that while this may be a good way to keep people hooked, this is also a good way to annoy the heck out of them. Yes, I was curious to see more clips of horrible singers getting rejected from American Idol auditions, but the fact that they refused to bring closure to the story even after THREE segments had me absolutely irritated. Irriated enough for me to turn off the TV and say "okay, I don't even care anymore, I'm not watching this show again." Sheesh! Tuesday, January 7, 2003 Muhahahaha I've added the almighty chatterbox into this ever-evolving blog website... but I think this is rather a bad omen because now people could talk back whenever I say anything controversial hahaha. But whatever, I decided that I want to interact more with the people who do read my thoughts on a regular basis. Of course, I do have the option of moving my blog to xanga, but I like using this geocities site since I get a whole lot more flexibility in terms of putting in extra sections and archiving my stuff in a more organized way. So if you feel like leaving a message, be my guest. Monday, January 6, 2003 I spent the entire day helping Heabin JDSN move to her new house with Jeff, Jason, and Susan. It was pretty draining, but it was a lot of fun because things got so spontaneously out of hand. At one point we loaded her furniture and books on the apartment elevator and it got stuck somehow. I thought I was going to die because I'm claustrophobic. It was horrible thinking about what sort of twisted fate waited for me this situation. But luckily it started moving after about 5 minutes and I came out with a HUGE sigh of relief. Thank God we weren't stuck for a long time, or else I would have seriously gone insane. I could laugh about it now since the problem got solved quickly. But if I had to stay in that stuffy elevator with five people and a bunch of big furniture for a significant amount of time, it seriously wouldn't have been a pretty sight haha. Whenever I have crazy days where I'm constantly busy and active, I come home super tired but I don't sleep. Instead, I sit around doing nothing in my room. It's 4:30am right now and I should have been asleep three hours ago. But in nights like this I like to just not sleep, no matter how tired I am. It's a good time to catch up on news and just think and play some quiet tunes on the guitar and read the Word. By sitting around and not sleeping, I fool myself into thinking that I've somehow slowed down the passage of time and it makes me calm down a bit. I think for me, my body has virtually accepted the state of tiredness as "normal," so it doesn't really hinder my physical activities and performance when I'm just plain "tired," until it comes to a point where I'm about to collapse out of sheer exhaustion. Another thing is, I'm not satisfied with a normal state of "tiredness" as a reason for sleeping. Let's say I'm "tired" and I go to bed and set my alarm clock for whenever I need to wake up the next day. But because I'm just plain "tired" and not "horrendously exhausted" I would take about 20-30 minutes, sometimes even an hour to actually fall asleep. So I start thinking, "dude, this is SUCH a waste of time, trying to fall asleep like this. I could be doing this and that or do something at least a little more productive, like reading the news or a book or entertaining myself with music or video games, etc etc. I absolutely love sleep. But I think it's an absolute waste of time to make a conscious effort to get to that state of sleeping, so I force myself to stay awake and keep my mind active and stimulated until I get to a point where I will fall asleep almost right away. Yes, I think it's horrendous, but I like to savor every minute of life and I want to milk every breath that I've been given for all its worth. Well, I'm really really really "tired" right now so I think I will go to bed. Sunday, January 5, 2003 Well, now that most of the craziness of December is out of the way now I could start updating more frequently. I've recieved some complaints about my lack of updating so I'll have to start picking things up again in the recording of the bizarre journey that is my life. Actually, only one person complained hahaha. But I care about his/her opinion, and I will honor it. Last week I bought new guitar stands for my guitars. My electric has a chrome stand, and my acoustic has a black stand. I think I care more about the fashion of my guitars than I do my own clothing. I took almost an hour in choosing my electric guitar's strap. The funny thing is, the strap for my electric is just plain black. But there are so many choices and so many designs, and at the same time you have to choose one that will blend with the guitar, while at the same time, blend with your physical appearance and your musical style. Now that our worship team is incorporating U2 style into our worship more and more, it makes me want to get a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar more and more. You can't really get that U2 sound if you use a delay effect with a Gibson guitar, although it rocks. It's just that Fenders are the way to go for delay effects, among other little things here and there. But overall, the Gibson Les Paul Classic is superior to the Fender Strat, which is why I got the Gibson first. And as far as guitar fashion goes, I've already chosen a black and white Fender American Strat, but I'll probably end up spending another hour or two choosing an appropriate strap for it. My guitars are like my right and left hand. I love them with my life. I couldn't imagine life without them.. hahaha. It kind of sucks how I have to leave my electric at church most of the time because it's just too much equpiment to carry back and forth every week. If I brought my elecric home, I'd also have to bring the amp home and the effects board. Or else I wouldn't be able to play it. But it's okay. Here is something I picked up from Jonsport's xanga site, which will be added to my English Major Humor section. And yes, I am completely guilty of everything that is listed in it: How to Write a College Paper 1. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a well lighted place with Microsoft Word opened up on your desktop. 2. Read over the assignment carefully, to make certain you understand it. 3. Walk to the kitchen or vending machine (if youre at the library) and get some coffee to help you concentrate. 4. IM your friend from class to see how he’s doing on his paper. If your friend hasn't started the paper yet either, you can both take a break & walk to the late night cafe and buy a pizza to help you concentrate. If your friend shows you his paper, typed, double-spaced, and bound in one of those irritating see-thru plastic folders, drop him. 5. When you get back to your room, sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well lighted place with Microsoft Word opened up on your desktop. 6. Read over the assignment again to make absolutely certain you understand it. 7. You know, you haven't written to your good friend from back home in awhile. You'd better write that letter now and get it out of the way so you can concentrate. 8. Go look at your teeth in the bathroom mirror. 9. Listen to your favorite CD and that's it, I mean it, as soon as it's over you are going to start that paper. 10. Play just the first track again. 11. Rearrange all of your CDs into alphabetical order. 12. Phone your other friend from class and ask if she's started writing yet. Exchange derogatory remarks about your teacher, the course, the university, the world at large. 13. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well lighted place with Microsoft Word opened on your desktop. 14. Read over the assignment again; roll the words across your tongue; savor its special flavor. 15. Start checking people’s profiles on AIM, and complain to anyone who will listen about how you hate writing papers. 16. Check everyone’s xanga. 17. Check your email. 18. Go to the living room and check to see what’s on TV—you catch a rerun of your favorite movie. 19. IM your friend to see if he was watching. Discuss the finer points of the plot. 20. Go look at your tongue in the bathroom mirror. 21. Wander aimlessly into your housemate’s room. Look through your housemate's book of pictures from home. Ask who everyone is. 22. Sit down and do some serious thinking about your plans for the future after you graduate. 23. Check your AIM away message; answer back the 5 people who have asked you how your paper is going. 24. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well lighted place with Microsoft Word opened up on your desktop. 25. Read over the assignment one more time, just for the heck of it. 26. Scoot your chair across the room to the window and watch the sunrise. 27. Lie face down on the floor and moan. Thursday, January 2, 2003 Hmm.. if I were to write down everything that happened the past seven days, I think I'd end up taking up the entire webspace that geocities gave me... so much to share and so much to talk about. But I won't go into too much detail, and if you want to know, ask me in person. Well, basically the talk of the town at church is the past retreat that we went on with the youth group. It was intense. VERY intense. It was a non-stop engaging of spiritual warfare and the teachers took it upon ourselves to carry the banner of Jesus under us and battle for the very souls of the kids. On Saturday night (the night before the retreat) we felt a kind of discomfort and heaviness that we had never felt before... so a few of us held a prayer meeting. The booklets and schedules and snacks and preperations were all done, but God's anointing was the thing we desperately needed. In this meeting something extraordinary happened. It was a supernatural anointing on myself. A new gift had been released. A spiritual gift. God had held it back until the time was right, and it was the a testimony to God's perfect timing for everything and everyone. And in this retreat God released a lot of things. Many chains were broken. Ultimately, freedom reigned in the hearts of His children. This is the kind of year I see for our KRUMC young adult ministry: 1. The foundation and background set for 2003 will be a year of change. A year of breakthrough. 2. 2003 will be a year of intense struggle. I think we will need to stand together under the same banner of love and this will be a time when we will need each other more than ever. 3. 2003 will be a year of battling. A year where we have declared war on the past and the things that have held us down for so long. A year of freedom. There will be much damage as well from the battling. But in the end, I believe we will be victorious 4. This will be a year in which God opens many, many doors. A great calling has been placed at a certain point in the course of this year for all of us. |