Who will give me a red flower in a pot

To be... or not to be....

2011-08-25T22:07:00.001-07:00

Clinical pharmacist?

http://www.pharmacist.com/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Pathways_Program&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=13626

Long term care pharmacist?

http://www.pharmacist.com/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Pathways_Program&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=13613

More like can be or cannot be...!!!!

Toddlers and Tiaras

2009-07-01T21:15:00.002-07:00

I just watched a TV show/documentary about Children Beauty Pageant, and I am at loss for words. What are they thinking? The people who hold the pageants, and the parents who dress and paint their children like some kind of mannequin!!!! I really don't get what any of the people try to achieve by doing such things.

Here's what I don't feel comfortable about those people going crazy over the little kids pageants.

First of all, I'm not convinced that it's what the kids really want. Some parents put their children on stage as young as they are just 11 months old. What some parents think when they first see their child is "I've got my pageant baby. I'll have her win trophies." I mean really, seriously?? And they say it's what the kids really enjoy, when it clearly is the parents who want it more then their kids. They say they'll let them quit when the kids don't want to do pageants anymore, but the documentary shows how much the parents will manipulate and persuade their kids to go for the pageants. And the kids who say they want to compete, it seems like they just want to make their parents happy, or just to keep the parents from being angry or disappointed in them. Okay, I'm sure there are kids out there who really loves to compete and go onto pageants without all the parent's heavy influences and pressures, but it seems like most of them want to do it because they've been brain washed about it since the moment they were born, or either wants to make their parents happy or just simply is afraid of what would happen if they say no. As for me, my mom used to love to dress me up in all sorts of lacy princess dresses and stockings, which I absolutely hated wearing since they were uncomfortable as hell and I couldn't run around in playground going all crazy as I wanted to. I once rebelled in elementary school about not wearing one of those ridiculous looking dress to school, mom ignored my protest and forced me into one (mom yelling and me crying), and I ended up crying to school that they. And yes, to this date, I despise puffy princess dresses and will not wear one unless I absolutely need to. So yeah I know what it's like to be all pretty and doll like when I never wanted to, and I know what it's like not to be able to say no knowing how much my mom was intimidating. Even if none of the kids experiences were as bad as my memory, do the kids really know what they want? Or even why they want it?

Secondly, it just isn't right. All that make up, shaving seven-year-old's legs, spray painting and tanning, pedicures, fake teeth and wigs to the point of where there is no regular kid recognizable left. What do I think doing such things to kids? I think it's an indirect way of telling the kids that they are not pretty if they don't paint themselves. That being pretty is the most important thing about them. That people love and cheer for them only because they are wearing pretty dresses, waving and dancing and smiling. One of the parents said that they put their kids into pageants because they want the kids to look like "little princesses." For me that is just ridiculous. They should be "the little princess" to the parents' eyes, no matter whether the children are covered in makeup or not! They should look pretty and happy even if they are not wearing a single sparkling outfit. The children should feel like their parents are proud of them not because they are so pretty or can look confidant in front of judges, but because of who they are. So what if they can't dance or sing as well as other kids? So what if their kids are not as pretty or tall and lean as other kids? So what if the kids are not as smart as other kids? Does it really matter that much to the parents pride? It's like they are making the kid the personal trophy of their own . The parents should be happy and proud that their kids are healthy, joyful, and bright kids. Any other talents that come into their life is just an extra thing. The looks and talent are not what defines who the children are, nor they ever need to feel that way. I mean come on, 5-7 year old kids should not be thinking about what they look like, or how much points they can get from gesturing to the judges. Not when they are little kids.

And lastly, I don't like the "competition" part of the whole pageant. Like, what does that even mean?? They rate the kids, give point values to what they look like, how they act and how they dance. Not everybody wins. There are only handful of winners, and only one big winner. What does that mean to the other kids who did not win? That they are not pretty enough? That they are not the perfect children worthy of trophies? Why on earth would anybody do that to the little kids? To my eyes, they are all beautiful children, even without all the makeup and all, and they should be treated as such. No other competition says such things about children. Not sports, music, dance, or art. Other competitions might say that some kids are better at some things than others, but the pageant suggests in ways that you were not the perfect child that the judges were looking for. And the kids who did not get anything get heartbroken. They are not just not as good at one thing, they are not good enough to be the beautiful child. The parents look even more disappointed, for god's sake. The parents say they want the children to go out there and have fun, but it's only fun when they win, right?

The kids should be allowed to be just kids. Play around, get dirty, make a mess, and worry about nothing. It's normal for teens and may be pre-teens to start worrying about what they look like, but is it really necessary for little kids not so bigger than babies?

용서하고 이해하고 사랑하라고 그러는데...

2009-05-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

어우 왜 자꾸 나는 짜증이 나냐. 썅.

희안한 일이다

2009-05-27T18:54:00.002-07:00

대한민국의 노무현 전 대통령이 돌아가셨다. 아니 "자살" 이라고 나왔다. 그 전에 뉴스에 나와서 국민 여러분께 부끄럽고 죄송하다고 말하며 법정으로 가시던데, 자살로 나왔으니 내가 생각한건 뻔하다. 들추기 싫어서 죽음으로 감추려 한것이라고. 말 그대로 뽀록나기 싫으니까 그냥 죽음으로 덮어버리려고 한거라고. 옆에 계시던 아주머니도 한말씀 하셨다. "쪽팔려서 죽었다고".

그런데 정말 신기한것은, 정말 희안한것은 인터넷이나 블로그, 뉴스에서 인터뷰한 수많은 사람들, 그 모두가 그렇게 비통해 하고 애통해 하고 손에 일이 안잡힐 정도로 그분을 그리워 한다는 것이다. 그리고 그를 죽음으로 몰아버린(??), 아닌 그를 "죽인" 현 정부와 검찰 수사원들을 증오한다는 것이다. 괜한사람을 죽여놨다고. 나로썬 그렇게 이해가 되지 않는다. 온 국민이, 아니 마치 온 국민이 그 사람 하나 때문에 오열을 하는것 처럼 보이는 이 상황은 난 잘 이해가 가지 않는다. 말그대로 그 블로그와 언론에서 말하는 그 "위대한" 노무현을 애도하는 수많은 사람들은 과연 속히 말하는 "노빠" 들일까 아님 그냥 평범한 사람들일까? 그렇게 비참해 하는 그 수많은 사람들이 과연 대한민국의 몇퍼센트일까? 30? 50? 90%? 지금 인터넷에 떠돌아 다니는 기사들과 블로그들을 보면 99.9% 라고 해도 과언이 아닌듯 싶다. 물론 사람이 돌아가셨다는데 애도를 하는것은 당연한 일이다. 사람의 목숨은 소중하고, 돌아가신 분을 기리는 것은 예의 이니까. 그러나 이것은 마치 그냥 단순한 예의를 지나친, 마치 하나의 전염병 처럼 보인다. 그러니까 그 왜 교회에서 사람들이 할렐루야를 외치며 눈물을 흘리며 기도하고 소리지르는 것 처럼, 한사람 두사람이 시작해서 교회 전체로 퍼져나가듯이 대한민국은 그렇게 광란에 빠져 보인다. 정말로, 정말로 그분을 그렇게 눈물을 흘릴 만큼 사모했던 사람들이 그렇게 많았던가? 아니, 그분이 그정도 대우를 받을만큼 정말로 위대했던 사람인가? 왜 그를 비판하고 수사를 원했던 사람들은 조용한가? 왜 인터넷은 그를 찬양하고 지금의 정부를 비판하는 듯한 말밖에 보이지 않는건가? 그가 그렇게 정말 평생 좋은일만 했던 사람이라 비판할 사람이 없는 것인가? 아님 지금 분위기에 짖눌려 자칫 말 한번 잘못했다간은 많은 사람들에게 작살날까봐 그러는 것인가? 몇일이 지났지만 분위기는 사그러들기는 커녕 점점 더 커지는듯 싶다. 난 한가지로 일렬된듯한, 한면밖에 보이지 않는 이런 분위기가 이해가지 않는다. 분명 그의 죽음은 애석하나 분명 죄가 있다고 판정하는 사람들도 있을 터인데, 아무런 말이 없다. 내가 찾지 못하는 것인가?

난 노무현 이라는 사람에 대해서 잘 알지 못한다. 중학교때 미국으로 와서 고등학교 대학교 다니며 미국 정치에는 조금 관심을 가졌었지만 (그것도 뭐 투표권도 없는데 뭣하러 그러나 싶어서 지금은 관심 끄고있는 중이지만) 한국 정치에 대해서는 정말 하나도 모른다. 물론 역사는 조금 알지만, 현재 상황이 어떤지, 어떻게 누가 힘을 가지고 있는지, 어느 당이 liberal 하고 conservative 한지 전혀 모른다. 노무현 이라는 사람도 대통령 이였다는것과, 많은 사람들이 보기에 좀 대통령감이 아닌??? 듯 하여 논란이 많았었다는 것만 알뿐. 아니, 대통령 감이 라기 보단, 대통령 다운 행동을 하지 않았다는 것이다. 부시와 오바마를 비교 할때 처럼, 그닥 리더쉽이 있어 보이는 똑똑한 사람은 아닌것 처럼 보였다. 부시도 서민적인 느낌을 강하게 어필해 대통령에 두번이나 당선을 했으나 많은 미국인들의 놀림거리가 되곤 했으니까. 오죽 했음 "바보 노무현" 이라는 별명이 생겼을까. 하여간 난 그에 대해서 크게 알고 있는것이 없으니 그 사람에 대해서 뭐 위대했고 안했고 이런걸 판단 할수가 없다. 지금까지 보아온 결과 대통령이면 대통령 마다 욕안먹었던 대통령이 없었던듯 하니 그가 격은 비판에 대해서도 뭐라 말할수 없다. 한국사람들은 감정적인 면이 강하다. 그만큼 열정적이라는 것도 있지만.

그래서 알고 싶다. 그사람이 도대체 무엇을 했는지. 뭐 간디나 마더 테레사 처럼 온 세계에 큰 감격을 줄만큼 큰 일은 안했다 해도, 그래도 이렇게 온 국민이(??) 혹 하니 빠져서 울고짜고 난리를 할 정도면 무언가를 했지 않았겠는가? 무슨 대단한 일을 했길래 사람들이 난리를 치는지 정말 궁금하다. 비꼬는게 아니라, 정말 몰라서 알고 싶어서 그러는거다. 이정도의 리액션이면 국민 영웅이라 해도 과하지 않을 반응이라, 도대체 무엇을 했는지 알고싶다.

그리고 수사에 관해서는, 지금 내가 보고 들은 것에 의한 내 의견은 "아니땐 불뚝에 연기날까" 이다. 비리가 있어서 수사를 했다고 들었다. 본인 혼자만이 아닌 본인 가족, 주위 분들, "조카 사위"까지 연관된. 한국에 있어서 비리든 뇌물이든야 뭐 대통령 대대로 하는 일종의 "전통" 같은것 처럼 된것처럼 보여 놀라진 않았다. 단, 문제는 그 분이 다른 사람의 비리를 들추어 내고 깨끗한 정치인으로 살아갈것을 항상 강조해 왔다는 것이다. 물론 정말로 돈을 받았는지 어쨌는지는 아무도 모르는 일이다. 누구는 단지 돈 좀 빌린거라고 한다. 수사를 했다고 해도, 언론에서 떠들어 대는 말들을 믿을수 없다는 것은 나도 안다. 난 언론에서 하는 말들을 잘 믿는 사람이 아니다. 정부에서 공식적으로 발표하는 "사실" 들도 사실이 아닐수도 있다는 것도 알고 있다. 한마디로 믿을수 있는건 아무것도 없다는 것이다.

그러나 수상한 면이 있다. 애초부터 오해받을 일이 없었다면, 수사할 필요가 없었을 것이다. 처음에는 자신은 결백하다며 진실은 밝혀질 것이라 하더니, 왜 자살을 하는가? 뭐가 국민 여러분들께 미안하고 부끄러운가? 본인때문에 많은 사람들이 고통스러워 하는것을 보는것이 힘들다고 했다. 그래서 자살을 하나? 정말 떳떳하다면, 살아서 밝혀야 할것이 아닌가. 죽음으로써 남는것은 의혹밖에 없다. 죽음으로써 마무리 된것은 흐지부지하게 되어버린 수사와, 결백을 증명함이 아닌 오히려 불혹을 일을킬 만한 의문들뿐이다. 그의 자살 행동을 보면 그가 결백하지 않아 보인다. 무엇을 덮어버리려고 했는지 의혹이 간다. 정말 결백하다면, 당당하다면 끝까지 싸워서 결백성을 인정해 낼때까지 버티는것이 옳은일이 아닌가? 주위 사람들이 힘들게 됐다면, 그래도 자신을 믿어달라고, 결백함에 굽히지 않는것이 맞는거 아닌가? 말이 안되는 행동이다.

미국에서 이런 일이 있었다. 한 부모에게 두명의 아들이 있었는데, 일하는 동안 아들들을 돌봐주던 싸이코 십대 여자 아이가, 자기를 짜증나게 군다는 이유 하나로 부모를 아동 성 범죄자로 몰아버린다. 변호사들은 어떻게 해서든 아이들을 보호하기 위해, 아니 유명해 지겠다는 욕심아래 억지로 아이들을 농락시켜서 법정에서 부모가 자기들을 성폭행 해왔다고 진술하게 한다. 어려서 아무것도 모르던 아이들은 내키지는 않았지만 시키는데로 했고, 부모는 자기 아이들을 성폭행 했다는 끔찍한 누명을 쓰고 감옥에 가게된다. 부모는 물론 결백하다고 부르짖었지만, 믿는 사람들은 아무도 없었다. 그렇게 몇년을 감옥에서 지내며 인간 쓰레기 처럼 취급을 받으면서 아무도 믿어주지 않아도 계속 자기의 결백함을 주장해 왔다. 심지어 성폭행을 했다고 진술하면 무기징역을 면해주겠다는 제안이 들어왔어도, 부모는 진술하지 않았다. 자기 자신이, 그리고 아이들이 알고 있으니까. 몇년이라는 긴 세월이 지나 결국에는 결백함이 밝혀지고 부모는 가까스로 누명을 벗었다. 실제로 일어났던 일이다.

왜 노무현이란 사람은 그러지 못했는가? 위에 언급했던 부모는 아무도 도와줄 사람도, 믿어줄 사람도 없었음에도 세상 모든 사람들에게 멸시를 받으면서도 굽히지 않았다. 친척들도 친구들도 동물보다 못한 인간으로 그들을 다뤘다. 그럼에도 무기징역을 받았어도 자살하려 하지 않았다. 단지 결백함을 증명하기 위해 노력하고 기다렸을뿐. 그리고 힘들었던건 그들 뿐만이 아니다. 두 아들들과 친척들, 친구들도 지워버릴수 없는 상처를 받았다. 그래도 결백했기에 견딜수 있었던 거다. 왜 노무현이 자살을 선택했는지 의문이다. 결백하지 않았기 때문에, 들춰내고 싶지 않을 만큼 부끄러운 무언가가 있었기 때문에 서둘러 덮어 버리기 위해 자살했다는 생각밖에 들지 않는다. 단지 억울함 때문에 자살을 할 만큼 대한민국의 대통령을 했던 사람이 나약하다고 생각되지 않는다. 육십 몇년이란 세월동안 수많은 일들을 격어내고 이겨냈던 사람이 수사로 인한 치욕적인 억울함 때문에 자살을 선택하다라....그리고 대한민국의 대통령을 했던 사람인데, 돈에 관련된 수사 때문에 자살을 한다면 대한민국 이라는 나라의 이미지에 먹칠을 하는꼴이 될수도 있다는걸 모를리가 없다. 이것은 분명 이기적인 행동이다. 누가 뭐라하던, 대통령을 무시하고 수사를 억압하듯 정부가 그의 모든것을 다 뺐어가듯 했다고 해도, 인간적 이지 못하게 그를 다뤘다고 해도, 자살을 해버리는건 이기적인 행동이다. 그냥 이름모를 소소한 개인이 아님을 본인도 알고 있을 터인데 자살을 선택했다는 것은 이기적인 행동으로 밖에 보이지 않는다. 이런 수사가 일어났다는 일 조차 부끄러운 일이다. 정말 다른 사람들이 괴로워 해서 자살을 선택했나? 죽으면 다른 사람들의 괴로움이 덜할거라 믿었던 것일까?

나도 잘 모른다. 대한민국에선 수사가 어떻게 진행이 되는지, 그가 아무리 결백함을 밝히려 애써도 그렇게 할수 없는 상황이었는 지는. 어쩌면 평생 억울한 누명을 뒤집어 쓰고 살아야 할지도 모르는 상황이었을 지도 모른다. 그분에게 적이 많았던거 같으니... 대한민국에 대통령을 적대시 하지 않던 그룹은 없었던거 같지만. 그래서 수사는 계속 되야 한다고 생각한다. 단지 그가 죽었다고 수사를 중단 하는것은 말이 안된다. 들추어 내어야 한다. 그가 결백하던 아니던, 들추어내 밝혀야 한다. 그에게 확실한 죄가 있다면, 그가 살아있건 죽었던간에 밝혀내서 알려야 한다. 밝혀내 세상 사람들이 제대로 알게끔 해야 한다. 누구도 완벽한 사람이란 없다. 그러니 그가 잘못했다 해도, 그것을 인정해야 하지 그를 죽음으로써 덮어버리며 위인화 시키는것은 아니라고 본다. 그리고 잘못을 했다면 잘못한것이다. 뭐 누구누구는 몇십억도 해먹었는데 이사람은 겨우 몇억 조금 한것 가지고 왜 사람을 갈궈대서 죽였냐는 태도는 기가 막힌다. 사과를 훔쳤던 차를 훔쳤던, 훔친건 훔친거고 잘못한건 잘못 한거다. 차를 훔친 사람은 눈감아 주면서 잘 사는데 사과를 훔친 사람좀 덮어주면 어떻냐는것은 세상을 공평하게 하는것이 아니다. 훔치지 않고 정직하게 사는 사람들에게 불공평 하다. 세상은 항상 불공평 하긴 하지만, 사람이 죽었다고 해서 잘못한 일이 괜찮아지는것은 아니다. 밝혀내라. 사과를 훔쳤던 차를 훔쳤던, 공인이기 때문에 더더욱.

반대로 그가 결백하다면, 그것또한 세상에 알려야 한다. 그리고 어떻게 이런 상황이 되었는지, 누구에게 책임이 있는지도 밝혀져야 한다. 그분이 이미 돌아가셨는데 이제 이런거 파고들어 봐야 무엇하냐는 생각은 말도 안되는 일이다. 그분이 결백함에도 이렇게 흐지부지 이도 저도 아닌것처럼 끝났다면 무슨 의미가 있는가? 그의 죽음만 헛된것이 되버린 것이다. 수사를 계속 하는것은 그분에 죽음에 누가 되는일이 아니라고 본다. 그분의 결백함을 믿는 사람들을 위해서라도 최선을 다해 수사를 해야한다고 생각한다. 그리고 결백함이 입증되면, 수사를 진행한 사람은 사과해야 하겠다. 얼버무려 꽁지빼듯 하지 말고, 확실한 물증으로 공식적으로 그분에게 사과해야 한다. 수사 자체에 대한 사과가 아닌, 수사하는 과정에서 생겨난 일들에 대해서. 그분이 느낀 괴로움에 대해서.

다른 누군가는 또 자살이 아닌 타살을 의심하는 사람들도 있던데, 그것에 대해서는 아무도 모른다. 물론 다 미리 조작된 쇼 일수도 있고, 언론에서 보도하는 그대로일 수도 있다. 추리 소설같이 줄줄 써내려 가는 사람들도 있지만, 진실은 아무도 모른다. 당사자 밖에는. 그러나 당사자는 이미 입을 열수 없게 되었다. 이럴때는 누굴 믿어야 하나? 언론도, 제대로 알지도 못하면서 떠드는 사람들도 (그 추리라는 것도 언론에서 나온 말들로만 가지고 나온 것이다. 정말로 언론이 하는 말들이 사실이라고 믿을수 있는건가? 직접 보고 들은것이 아니라면 난 항상 어느정도 의문을 가지는 편이다. 멋도 모르고 떠들어 대는 사람들 보면 답답하다.), 수사를 하러 뛰어다니는 사람들도, 진실은 본인 밖에 모르는 일이다. 무엇이 진실인지, 누가 정말 100%의 사실을 알고 있는지 모르는 상황에는 도대체 누구말을 믿어야 하나?

물론 그분의 죽음에는 애도를 표한다. 사람이 돌아가셨다는데 그쯤이야 당연히 마땅히 해야할 일이다. 그러나 대한민국의 광적인 리엑션은 이해하기 힘들다. 언론에서 보고되는 이야기 마다 그분 이야기 뿐인것도, 블로거들, 작가들, 연애인들 등등 그분을 기리고 칭송하고 하는것들, 솔직히 좀 기이하다. 마치 너무 아까운 보배같은것을 일은듯한 반응들. 한나라의 대통령을 기리는것은 당연하나, 지나치게 집착하며 칭송하는듯 싶다. 그렇게 소중한 분이었으면 왜 막지 못했나? 아까 말했듯이, 지금의 대한민국은 교회에서 예수를 부르짖는 기독교인들을 연상 시킨다. 그들이 느끼는 감정은 과연 정말일까? 그 많은 사람들중 그분을 개인적으로 아는 사람들이 얼마나 될까? 그분에 대해서 얼마나 잘 알고 있길래, 마치 친하게 몇년동안 알고 지내던 사람마냥 다들 그렇게 눈물 흘리고 하는것인지. 정말 그분이 미칠 정도로 안타깝고 슬퍼서 그러는 것인가, 아님 다들 분위기에 휩싸여 눈물 흘리는 것인가?

Oh boy, I don't remember.

2009-01-31T20:08:00.002-07:00

Long story short, I got a message from my former violin teacher, saying that she remembers how well I played Rubinstein's bee. I sort of freaked out, because I seriously did not remember playing anything like that. Rubinstein's what?? Bee? Never heard of it. I desperately started looking for it in youtube, and found "bee" by Schubert. I listened. But I still didn't remember. May be sounded somewhat vaguely familiar? I freaked out a little more. Either she's mistaking me for another student (she did say "brilliant", which is hardly the word I would describe my playing... but then, she complimented students a lot), or, it really was me and I totally forgot about it. I pride myself in thinking that I can recognize every single music that I've played, that I can remember learning them. So it was a big deal that I have a total musical memory wipe!!! I had to find out. I ran upstairs to my former room, looked through the old musics, then voila! There it was! Something written in Russian (I'm guessing it's "bee"), then another russian word, and next to it it was written "Rubinstein" in my teacher's handwriting. Duh!! With my newly developed(??) sight reading skill, I read off the score... and yes, it was that same music that I did not recognize on u-tube. Man, I'm doing case studies on dementia, and now I'm hoping that I'm not having one. How can I forget? I mean, even she remembers me doing a recital with it. It boggles my mind.

Looking back at the music, it does look very easy to play now. (But then again, there's no such thing as "easy" music...) It must be about 10 years ago or so since I've looked at that music. I'm not sure if it's something that I practiced soon after I started playing violin again, after 3 years of not even touching the instrument. I still remember how shocked/embarrassed I was when I started to play again. My hands felt all awkward and I was well aware of how deathly out of tune I was. I think I came pretty far. I'm not anywhere near where I want my skills to be at, but still, came pretty far. Far more than I could even dream of back when I decided to quit, thanks to her and my other teachers, and all their supports. Amazing.

I guess we are all different...

2009-01-02T19:58:00.003-07:00

It makes me wonder when I see people get amazed by how musicians memorize music. I've also been baffled when I was complemented that I have "good memory", because for me, memorizing has always been the easiest part. I've never actually spent time "memorizing" any of the music that I was learning, besides making sure I know which fingerings to use or where the repeats are. For a performance, I've played/practiced the same music at least a hundred times by the time I have to perform it, and for me not being able to memorize by that time just doesn't make sense. Lets say I have 30 days to learn the music, and lets say that I play/practice the music 3-4times a day (for long pieces, just playing it 3-4 times makes me tired). That comes up to be around 100 times that I've played the same music, not including the times that I listened to it in a car or from computer. So is it only me who thinks it's weird that people can't memorize music by then? I'm saying this because I was surprised to find quite few number of people having to actually spend the time memorizing the music! I've never had problem playing without music, and sometimes I prefer it because I can concentrate on playing more, rather than dividing my focus into reading off the page. I look at music for mental comfort, to make sure that I don't miss any dynamics or accents, so that I actually have somewhere to put my eyes on. (It gets kinda awkward on stage when you don't know where to look at.... I don't really like looking at my violin or my hand, but I just do because I feel awkward looking at anything else). I've never had the so called "memory slips" before either, except the two times those darn repeats screwed me over. I don't know. I think it's an interesting phenomenon.

What I am like..

2008-12-29T16:57:00.001-07:00

So I was going through class folders to dig out something that I can use for the "portfolio", and came across the "Enneagram" that the weird life coach(??) lady gave out at the leadership conference at the beginning of the semester. (Anybody remember that??) I got curious and googled it because I never got to find out what my personality trait is, and easily found it (http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/QuestTest.pdf). You can get the detailed explanation at http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/

I am quite surprised (freaked out) at what I found out... Here are my top 3 primary personality type, #4 being most like me:

4. The Individualist. The introspective, romantic type.
Fours are self-aware, sensitive, and reserved. They are emotionally honest, creative, and personal, but can also be moody and self-conscious. Withholding themselves from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective, they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. They typically have problems with melancholy, self-indulgence, and self-pity. At their Best: inspired and highly creative, they are able to renew themselves and transform their experiences

5. The Investigator. The perceptive, cerebral type. Fives are alert, insightful, and curious. They are able to concentrate and focus on developing complex ideas and skills. Independent, innovative, and inventive, they can also become preoccupied with their thoughts and imaginary constructs. They become detached, yet high-strung and intense. They typically have problems with eccentricity, nihilism, and isolation. At their Best: visionary pioneers, often ahead of their time, and able to see the world in an entirely new way

8. The Challenger. The powerful, aggressive type. Eights are self-confident, strong, and assertive. Protective, resourceful, straight-talking, and decisive, but can also be ego-centric and domineering. Eights feel they must control their environment, especially people, sometimes becoming confrontational and intimidating. Eights typically have problems with their tempers and with allowing themselves to be vulnerable. At their Best: self-mastering, they use their strength to improve others' lives, becoming heroic, magnanimous, and inspiring

So I'm most like a ...damaged loner who thinks they are something special, but still full of self-doubt and self-pity?? Man it's so depressing! It almost seems like I got the most negative/problematic personality listed there. But the real sad thing is, I can really relate to A LOT of things that the "detailed explanation" says about the type #4. >:(
Of course, I disagree with some of the things that it said, but this has been one of the most accurate personality tests that I've done. Kinda scary even.

Yet another decision

2008-04-15T23:02:00.002-07:00

It's almost the end of the school year; I have more or less 4 weeks of school left at this point. Honestly I cannot wait till it's all over, and those 3-4 weeks can't go fast enough for me. I know I will have more schooling next semester, but at least I'll be studying what I wanted to study all this time. This prepping has been too long, and I've waited long enough. I do want Bachelor's degree, and that's pretty much the only reason that I'm sticking to it. I don't know; now that I know for sure that I'm graduating, I don't want to be in school anymore. It's simply like that.

Anyhow, the reason that I wanted to visit my blog again was because I wanted to get my mind sorted out again. I'll be starting pharmacy school next year, and that's all very exciting and everything, but I think it also calls for the end of my violin studies. I wouldn't say "end" for sure, because I'll be playing of course, but as for the lesson part, I'm not so sure. On one hand, I do want to continue learning. I'm not very good at it, and I know it. I need improvement, and lesson can help that. And I also think that I will be able to take lessons if I really wanted to. But, on another hand, I also feel like I've bothered my teacher long enough now, and he's probably better off teaching other kids than dealing with me for few more years, bcuz unfortunately I don't think I improved that much all along. I did improve, but not as much as I should have. I guess I just didn't try hard enough; who can I blame but myself? Problem is, I think I'm at a point where I won't be able to improve much unless I try very hard. I'm sort of on the middle ground here, at a blurry line between being advanced player or just a mediocre player. My teacher had been trying very hard to pull me into the advanced player range, and I wasn't able to follow him into that. Especially this semester-- I know it might be the last time that I would ever take lessons again in my life (I guess I can later too, but who knows), and I really really wanted to do well this time. Work hard on it, make him proud, and make myself proud. Get better at it too, so that I can actually able to play it well. But I just couldn't. I am taking too many classes, and now practicing seems like a luxury that I can't afford sometimes. If I sleep 4-5 hrs a day, then yeah I can fit everything in, but my body gives out before I know it. I pass out, and it's already morning when I wake up. Before I only had to set time limit to how much I can practice that day, but now practicing don't even get listed that often anymore. Sounds like bunch of excuses, but that's the case. I'm tired, and I sound so..... uh...blah?? There's no excitement in my playing, and even I can feel that when I play. In lessons I'm always tired too, since I run around all day going to classes, then volunteer, and lesson is the last part of my day. I start that day at 8:00 am (of course I wake up much earlier then that), and my lesson's at 4pm. I'm try not to be, but I'm tired no matter how much coffee I drink beforehand. It's frustrating, because I want to do well, but I sound the opposite. I'm sure my teacher's sick of hearing me sound the same every time too. I'm sick of myself sounding like that. Today was worse, because I went in for a lesson not even touching my violin for two days. I feel like if this continues, it would not be beneficial for both of us.

So I think the best way is to give it a rest. I know pharmacy school won't be a joke. May be it would be a struggle to just keeping up with the school, never mind getting A's or not (and like I really care for that now). I'll keep playing of course, but the lesson... I'd love to, but if it will be like this for long, I know I won't be able to get much out of it; just frustratrations may be. And violin really is an instrument that takes lots of effort and time, so... yes, I think it would be the best. I need to focus on pharmacy school, and I can play violin without having to feel like I just have to. I'll re-learn the pieces; I did learn a lot too, and there are so many more out there that I can learn! Hopefully I'll be able to keep it up....!

불후의 명작

2007-12-24T14:54:00.000-07:00

"나는 본래 사내아이로서, 계집아이도 아닌데... "

패왕별희... 지금껏 내 인생에서 본 영화중 과연 이만큼 감명을 준 영화가 또 있을까. 보면서 느끼고 또 느꼈다. 사람의 인생이란 어째서 이렇게 기구한 것일까 하고. 배경, 시놉시스, 연출, 연기에 이르기까지 무엇하나 빠질것이 없는 영화다. 오랫만에 거장격인 영화를 본듯해 아직도 가슴이 뛴다. 창녀의 아들로 태어나 어미에게 손가락을 잘리고 버려진후, 혹독한 훈련끝에 강제로 여성이라는 정체성을 받아들여야 했던 데이. 패왕별희라는 경극에 목숨을 걸고 우희로서의 삶으로 샬로를 사랑하지만, 질투와 시기, 그리고 믿었던 사람들로 부터의 배신 또 배신... 급속히 바뀌어가는 시대에 그의 삶은 말할수 없이 슬프고 비참하다. 그리고 그는 끝에 자신의 잃어버린 정체성을 되찾으며 스스로 목숨을 끊음으로 그 비극적인 인생을 마친다. 심적으로도 신체적으로도 과연 사람이 일생에 그 모든 고통을 감당할수 있는것인지....주인공부터 조연까지 모두다 맡은 역들을 사실이라 믿겨질 정도로 훌륭히 소화해냈다. 특히 장국영 이라는 배우... 물론 나 어렸을때 워낙 유명했던 사람이라 익히 들어 알고 있었지만, 그가 했던 영화들이 성인용들이라 나로서는 접할 기회가 없었다. 내 기억이 맞다면, 패왕별희는 그분이 한 영화중 내가 처음 본 영화이다. 보는 내내 믿을수가 없었다. 누가 그를보고 신이내린 재능이라고 부르던데, 그말이 당연하게 공감이 될 정도로 그는 그의 역활을 완벽하게 해내었다. 손동작 하나, 눈길, 몸짓 하나조차 노칠수 없는 그런 연기를 해낼수 있다는거 자체가 나로서는 놀랍고 경의롭다. 티비나 영화에서 수많은 배우들을 봐왔지만 내가 "아 정말 연기를 잘하는구나"라고 느꼈던 배우는 몇 되지 않는다. 장국영은 그런 의미에서는 내가 인정하는(?) 배우들중 top이 된다고 해도 과장이 아닐것이다. 장국영 뿐만이 아니라, 그 영화에서 나온 모든 사람들의 연기는 훌륭했지만. 어떻게 이런 영화를 생각해 냈을까. 비참하고 기구한 비극의 영화... 그곳에서 싸우던 한사람의 인생. 나이가 들어서 봐야하는 명작중 하나이다. 다시보고 싶어도, 볼 엄두가 나지 않는다. 한동안 다른영화는 보고싶지 않을꺼 같다. 장국영 그가 죽었다니 안타깝다.

Tough choices

2007-12-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

So I think I've made up my mind. I'm giving up on the interview invite for two other schools that I applied. It's scary, even when I'm writing this. It could be that I'm throwing away a perfactly good chance. I really don't know if I'm making the right decision... but more and more I think about it, MW sounds more and more appealing. Yes, it's expensive, but the school provides good education, it's not far from home, so I think if I calculate everything together (cost of moving, plane ticket prices, interviewing price, general living expanses etc...) it'll save me more money than going to school in east coast for four years. It being a 3 year program is also appealing in some ways; like some people said, I can start making money and pay for loans one year earlier. And it's not like I'll be studying 356 days a year in that school; I do get little breaks in between, which I think might be better than having two big breaks between semesters. And if I do really want to live somewhere east coast like, I can always move to that state later after I graduate. It doesn't seem like I can slack off and party and still be in pharmacy school, so it won't make much difference where I live. And I'm kinda used to the non-stop studying too. May be it won't feel that much different. And I also think that it would be less burdensome for my parents that I'm not so far away, especially for my mom. They can visit me during weekends if they want to, so I think it would be nice. Yeah. I think it would be the best to turn down on other schools invites, since going for interview will just cost me another $1000 and more. It's a tough decision, but I think it's the best option that I have. And it's not a bad one either.
As for UA, I also got an interview invite. I have approximately three weeks to prepare for it... I'm less nervous now that I've done it once, but I really really really do wish that I get in. I'll just have to work hard for it like I've always done, and hope for the best. Man, this process really is stressful.... Wish me lucks! I think january will be a good month to me (two concerts! and all of them are at the same week as my interview! What an excitement that is!!!), so I'll be crossing my fingers ;) Happy holidays everyone

To trust, or not to trust, that is the question...

2007-12-16T16:49:00.000-07:00

I've complained about Jamie before, but I have to say something again. I don't know, it's kinda hard to live with somebody outside of your family. Today I'm noticing again that she's lying. She says she's going out to study at the library with her friend, and I told her the library close early today, at 6 O'Clock. After hearing that, she was like "oh yeah...? .... well, I'm going out anyways." WTF? Why doesn't she say that she's gonna go hang out with Todd? She doesn't have to lie about it, it's obvious that she's just going out, since she's not even brining a book with her. It's just annoying that's all. Even when we are at school too. I purposely did not work this semester even though I could, and the best time too, since I have to share car with her and bring her back home after she's done with her classes. But almost every day she says she has to "study" with her friends, and ask me to go by myself. Sometimes she won't even call me for 20 to 30 minutes after her class, making me wonder if I need to wait for her or just go. Then she calls and says "oh yeah I forgot, but I'm coming home with my friends." Not even a word of "sorry". Today I was gonna ask her if she wanted to go over to my sis' house, but glad that I didn't. She's probably gonna say yes, and as soon as Todd calls, she'd change her mind and say she can't go. And that would annoy me even more. You see, I know that she's lying because, first of all, it's plain obvious, and I heard her lying to her friends before like it was nothing. She didn't want to go to one of her friend's house when he invited her, so she just said "I'm working right now so I can't" when she doesn't work in any place. I looked at her like what the hell, and she just shrugged like it was nothing. Ugh. Mom thinks she's going out with Todd but I don't think that's the case here. I mean I understand that she wants to hang out with her friends and that's fine with me, but why lie about "studying?" Does she feels that she has to look like she's studying since her parents are pouring money into her pocket to send her school here? Well then she oughta be studying, not hanging out with her friends every other day! Honestly, I've never seen her really study on her own, except when she has tests of course. Well, at least she doesn't make my lil sister to write her essays for her. What a &!#%^&. You know, she talks about how great this opportunity is and how she wants to be fluent in three languages and all, but I NEVER see her really try. She just complains about how bored she is. And yes, she still doesn't really invite me to hang out with her friends together, not that it matters but just for being polite I think she should at least ask, not just saying empty words like how I should meet her friends sometime. The only time she ever really asked me to join her, it wasn't from her but one of her friends. And she even admits herself how self centered she is. Just annoying, that's all. I'm trying my best to believe in people rather than doubt about their true intentios, but boy that's hard.

헐;

2007-12-10T21:36:00.000-07:00

밑에 포스트 리플라이 보고 순간 움찔했다.. =_= 설마 미드웨스턴 사람이 코맨트를 붙였을줄이야. 젠장 학교 이름을 붙이는게 아니였어. 포스트 지워버릴까.. =_= 이런쌰파;

Wow I haven't blogged for three months??

2007-11-28T19:55:00.001-07:00

Well I've been busy with school... This semester was very hard to get through, since basically I didn't have much break through summer, taking classes and whatnot. Lack of motivation too, because I didn't really know what my future will be like. It seemed like all my efforts and sacrifices were just part of a big gamble, not a guaranteed success. So it was hard. I didn't want to do anything, including studying and filling out applications. It seemed useless. I guess I was just tired of everything. But yesterday I found out that I got accepted to MU! Wooohooo! It was pretty unbelievable, since I thought I didn't do so great during "group" interview. (May be the school looks more at the 'stats and numbers' than interview... I didn't think they really got to know me during the interview so.) But anyhow, I got in, and I do realize for the first time that it is possible, that I don't have any lame excuses. That all my efforst and sacrifices do come out to be a success. It's weird to know that it really is possible. Wanna know what the very first thing that came into my head when I first saw that "accepted" word? O.K., the very first thing was "No way!", but right after, I was thinking of all the people who helped me throughout the application process. I really don't think any of this was possible without their help, my friends, teachers, family members who believed in me and who supported me. It's just amazing. I'm forever grateful of those people who would do anything to help me achieve my dreams. And all of them were so happy when I shared the good news! I'm just very lucky to have these people around me. They seemed more happier than I did. I am quite tired and stressed for finals so that might explain why I'm not as excited as I should be.

The school that I've been accepted is very expensive. It's one of the reasons why I don't really wish to attend the school, even if I'll become a pharmacist in 3 years instead of 4. The whole cost of attending would be around $50,000, so go figure. I think my parents will want to support me throughout my education, but I don't really want to put this much burden on their shoulders. I'll also have to talk to the school about visa problems, except that I don't want them to know that they are not my top choice. Arrg I should think about all this things after the final, not right now. I should study for finals now!! Go study!!

One thing I know is, whatever happens, I'll be a pharmacy student next year! I'll probably change my blog then too....

And I think again...

2007-09-03T21:27:00.000-07:00

What's the point? Yes, here we go again. I'm frustrated. Again. I can't help it. May be I'm just being very impatient, but when things are the way they are right now, I'm pretty much fed up with the whole thing. It just seems like I'm putting every ounce of my effort into trying to achieve what I planned on, but with no results. Nothing. I have worked this hard, and haven't achieved a thing. And that pisses me off. You know, when I was a kid, I thought if I worked hard enough at something, I would be able to achieve it. But then as I'm getting older, those things are getting more rare to find. Instead, things that I can't achieve even when I tried hard, those things are becoming more common. And I'm tired of it. What's the point?, that's how I feel . I don't even feel like I'm living my life. I'm still wasting my life away for the "better future". There's just no excitement. And when there is time for anything exciting to happen, I'm so f-ing tired to go for it. I want to do nothing and just rest, then end up complaining about how boring my life has become. What was I expecting? Is this going to be my life forever? Graduating, working, tired the whole time, trapped in a fixed cycle? I don't want that! But then I don't know what else is there. Sitting here staring at the screen makes me sigh. It's tough. I hate this frustration. I wish I can live my life as it comes, not having to think or worry about anything. But that can go only far. That ensures only little. Hell, I tried this hard and nothing happened, so I guess there's no point in even trying for anything anyways. May be I should let things happen, instead of trying to make everything work out. Ha, who am I kidding. And blame it on bad luck? I'll be the sourse of the blame, for not doing anything about it! Whatever. If I make it, I make it. If I don't, then I don't. Do I even care anymore? Man, where is my "mentor" when I need it? Where is anybody when I need them? I'm not giving up, I can't give up. This obsession might be the reason why I'm so freakin frustrated!
And what's up with the whole censorship thing? The other way I was reading an interview article on Times Magazine where the author censored all the curse words like "F___ " or "Sh___". I mean come on! I'm sure people who read Times Magazine know what those words are even if they are "censored". Who are they kidding? What, are they afraid of six year olds reading Times Magazine and learning all the swear words? Or afraid that someone will read the article and be offended if they saw words like that? Well, what the hell is the point if it's fucking obvious what those words are then? If someone said 'fuck', just print the god damn word! Arg! When will this nonsense all end?? When will anything ever end?!

Sulk

2007-07-30T21:09:00.000-07:00

So I just picked up Zoe from the mall, and now it's 9:10. I didn't talk much during the drive, just to show that I'm not happy with the whole ordeal. Am I being bit immature "not talking and sulk"? I don't know. In my communications class I learnd that nonverbals have more meaning than verbal communication, and I do really think that she needs to know that I'm not happy with how it went today, no matter how much she just loooved the movie and how it was the best movie she that saw since she got here. I, personally, can't care less. You know why? Because she didn't even mentioned the word "sorry", or the whole "sorry to make you come all the way here", which was honestly what I espected. She just briefly said "thanks", which is better than nothing I guess. I really think I need to stop this cycle. I feel like I'm not getting what I want, but she's the one getting away with all she wants. Like the last time when I wanted to go to bookstore but asked her if it would be all right with her,but she said she'll be busy with homeworks so she doesn't want to. I was bit baffled, but didn't say anything. Yet I let her go away with petty excuses and have to go back and forth for her. I need to take up a step and just say something, showing that there is a demand of my own, and how about just sacrificing her fun for my convenience for a change?? (she asked if the mall's far from home, and I said yeah about 20~25 min from home, so hopefully she gets the idea. I doubt that it got anywhere even close to her ear though.) I don't care if I'm just bitching over nothing, cuz I'm pissed anyways. It truly sucks that I don't have anybody to talk to about it since I don't want to sound like I'm a kind of person who likes to talk about others in their back. That's not who I am. But being pissed is being pissed, and I'd love to just have someone to bitch about the whole thing. Ugh I'm afraid for the real semester. Let us pray that she won't be bothering me with her hanging out with her friends every other day.

Arrg!

2007-07-30T15:38:00.000-07:00

Ok. Here we go. I've been putting this away for some time, but I gotta write about it today. So I dunno if I posted about my cousin going to the ESL program at the U of A for an year, and that she's staying at my house. It seemed all fine at all at first; I mean, I didn't get to see her for like 8 years, and all my cousins got along real well when we were young so it seemed like a good idea back then. But then (yeah, you guessed it), everything isn't going as fine as it seemed like it would be.

You know why I'm so pissed off today? So here's how it's going. My class starts from 9:30 to 12:45 MTW, and Zoe's in class from 8 to 2:45 everyday. Which means that I drop her off at the school at 8 O'clock every morning and go to Pima, and then come back to U of A once my class is finished and wait till 2:45. Which is fine, considering it's a little more than two hours of wait and that I do need to study for PCAT. But today she calls me around 2:49 and tells me she wants to go see Harry Potter with her friends, so do I wanna go see the movie too? I said No, I've seen the movie already, and honestly the movie's not good at all. Then she says she really wants to see the movie, so I can just go home, and pick her up when she's done with the movie. She'll call me when she's done. Ok. Let's stop for a minute and go back couple of weeks in time. My friend asked me if I wanted to go see the midnight opening of Harry Potter and wanted me to ask Zoe too. So I asked her if she wanna go see it, and her immediate reply was " forget it", sounding just like what a stupid thing to watch, her face mocking. And yet today she says she reeeeally wants to go see Harry Potter. How would you feel if you heard that, after kindly been waiting for her for 2 hours and 15 minutes? Wouldn't you be pissed off?? And the thing is, this is not the first time! Oh no it isn't!!

I have a lot to say about this matter. I know that coming from Korea, where everything and everywhere is so accessible with easy transportation, staying in Tucson must be really boring. I'm sure she's used to going out with her friends all the time, whenever she felt like it. But this isn't Korea, and I've already told her that before she even got here. I don't think she even listened to half of what I told her about Tucson and the CESL program, because she literally had no idea about how much the tuition is, or even how to be enrolled. (I mean my aunt didn't know much about anything either, so what a surprise... in fact, my aunt got bit pissed about how much it cost for her daughter to go school here, and grilled me about it whenever she had chance to when she was here. Wasn't she supposed to know that before she finally made her mind up to come here? And why grill me about it? I'm not the person who decided it for god's sake!!!) Anyways, besides her usual complain about how much homework she has and how much she hate to work on them, she started to say things like "Is it hard to get a used car here? I want a car." I was totally speechless. Lost. I mean, she doesn't even know how to drive a car. Apparently, she thinks if she practices like three times on the road, she'll get it. And besides getting her drivers license and things like that, she has NO IDEA about what it means to have a car. The maintenance fee, insurance coast, gas prices... NO IDEA. May be she thinks it's slightly more complicated than owning a bike, I dunno what she thinks. Before that she wanted to move out and get an apartment close to U of A, so that she could hang out with her (hmm, hmm,) Korean friends more often. Yeah, just like in korea, whenever and wherever she feels like it. Personally, I don't know what to make of it. If I was her, knowing that my parents are willingly spending tons of money (CESL's one month tuition equals a semester worth of tuition for residents) for her, I wouldn't want to make my parents pay even more money by having to buy me a car or paying my apartment rent for me. I would focus on getting my english pretty good soon, so that my parent's won't waste money. Especially since I know of someone who has to go through college all by herself by getting scholarships and working, I don't know what to make of Zoe's apparent ignorance of the situation.

Another thing that I'm pissed at is the way that she hangs out with her friends. Whenever I hanged out with my friends I always tried to invite her, whether it was likely or not that she'll accept, just to be nice. And I did bring her to introduce my friends couple of times, so that she would have the chance to get to know some people besides Koreans. My friends were nice enough to let me bring her and hang out with her together, and even asked me about how she's doing and stuff. It was a polite thing to do, something that I thought everyone would do being similar ages and all. But Zoe apparently thinks different. Over the countless times when she would hang out with her friends, she only asked me twice if I wanted to come along, including today (probably so that she can go to the movies). It doesn't matter whether I'm really interested in hanging out with her friends or not, and honestly I wouldn't have really liked to, but anyways after all the times that I tried to make it so that she won't feel left out, and avoiding the days and times where I'm obliged to pick her up from school when I wanted to hang out with my friends, it feels like she didn't appreciate any of it. It's like when I asked her if she wants to go club with my friends, and she said no, but few days later went with her own friends borrowing someone's ID, and never even bothered to ask me if I wanted to go. In fact, she made me drop her off at her friend's house so that she could go with her friends, and me and my mom went to the exact same house couple hours later to pick her up. And it wasn't even somewher close either. She frequently tells me that I can go home and come back later to pick her up like it's nothing, but when I have to drive 30 min to get to school and 30 min to come back, that's an hour of wasted time. I mean come on! What is she thinking?! God it pisses me off the more and more I think of it. Honestly at this point, I wouldn't mind her going back to Korea anytime soon, or getting her own apartment. If this happens again, I'm definitely saying something. May be I'll say something today, when she "calls me" so I can go pick her up like some sort of servant.

One down, one more to go

2007-07-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

So I finally finished reading the most awaited last book of the Company series, "The sons of heaven". This was actually the book that I was afraid I might never get to put my eyes on; I liked previous stories so much that I actually was worried that something might happen to the author and the story never gets to be written. Some paranoia, eh? That was how into I was about this series. (I almost shrieked when I found out that the copy of "the rude machenicals" were signed by Kage Baker herself...! Oh and that was one hilarious story too! It's always entertaining to see Lewis and Joseph together... my definite favorite characters!) And as it is always the case with a good story/book/series, I was excited and also bit sad to anticipate that I'd get to find out what it all would end up to, that the joyful ride would be finally over. Ahhhh the anticipation! I've waited and waited for this moment! And now I've finally finished reading the last word of the book, about 5 minutes ago. So what do I think of it? Well, I'm having mixed feelings right now.

(*SPOILER WARNING; do not read if you ever want to read the series, which I strongly recommend.)
It didn't quite turn out the way I imagined, or hoped it would be. I don't know, I guess I was expecting something more grandeur, something more definite... Afterall, all the suspicions, mystery and drama has been building up for several books to finally reach the year 2355. And seriously, I had the hardest time trying to understand how the "time walking" or "escape to eternity" worked, the way that Edward, Alec, and Nicholas was able to do things like healing people instantly. Physics and time traveling weren't really the concept I got anywaysl, but little bit more explanation could've been better for the readers. Either that, or the author herself does not really know how the whole thing can work. Oh and what an insanly weird family Mendoza's got going!! I mean, a lover(or lovers) turned into sons??? And become families? A child, lover, husband...Whaaaa? I don't know, I never really liked how the story of Mendoza and her lover was going, and liked it even less. And oh the poor, poor Lewis... :( I really do think that Lewis deserved far more that just a comfortable life that he got at the end. I actually hoped that Lewis would somehow be able to get together with Mendoza, if only Mendoza wasn't so helplessly in the blind love by the Recombinants (sorry Nicholas, Edward, and Alec; never really liked you guys). Oh poor Lewis... after all that he's been through, and I bet that he was just happy for Mendoza when he saw what was going on, hopelessly selfless and kind gentleman that he is. And Joseph... eh. Joseph will be Joseph, although I'd have liked to see him in more action than it was allowed in the book. I honestly thought it would've been more exciting if the author trimmed down on the "bringing up the boys" stories and got more of the action involved in it, wheather it's Joseph's, Lewis', or some other characters. The way I imagined, I thought Joseph of all the chracters would be a hero. But then I guess not. He's not quite a hero type. And Hearst and the Princess Tiara?? That threw me off.
Since the author was getting so many levels of characters and their plots, betrayals, and triple agents, I seriously was doubting how she was going to make it all work out at the end. And it went down the road that I hoped it wouldn't go, bringing in a third character to bring the peace and justice for all. Almost seemed kind of pointless what Alec, Edward, and Nicholas went through mingled in a body together hating each other, or what Lewis, Joseph, and Sullyman had to endure to get where they were at the final moment. All the suffering, efforts, guilt building up... and he just comes in and makes everything all right in a snap. No worries anymore! Be happy! After all that work? ....Gee, thanks a bunch! It's like five people busted their necks trying to come up with a solution to a math problem, and when they almost came to an answer somebody just walks in and throws them the answers like all their trying was nothing. (And Edward the overprotective father? oh come on!) I don't know, the ending wasn't very satisfactory to me overall, I hoped something big would come and end it all for good, but I'm not the author, so why argue? It was her story to finish, and she finished it whatever way that she wanted it to be, whether I liked it or not. I'm really tempted to write a fanfic of some sort just so that my feelings for the characters get satisfied. Can't argue with that one either, right? What I do know is that I hope that I could read more of the story of the company people. I don't know if Baker would write anything after the final ending, but I hope she writes more of the side stories. I loved the company setting. Joseph the sly liar, fiery Mendoza, romantist gentleman Lewis, genius Latif... all the troubles! Fun times. I'll miss them, definitely, and I know I don't have the luxury of time to read the stories all over... perhaps when I have more time I'll. Especially the Graveyard game.

And I have Harry potter to tackle down too! Sakana's reading it right now, so it gives me some time to rest between marathone of books to read. I'll have to do my work in between then... Man, I really do think I would be happy living in an Island with just a library full of books.

What's new?

2007-06-20T12:56:00.000-07:00

What's new? Oh I'll tell you what's new. I got to see a hog, 3 cows, and a lamb(goat?) being "harvested"(aka slaughtered) today in my summer Food Safety class. And for those who are wondering what kind of class I'm attending, it's one of the agricultural science class actually on a "Farm", complete with slaughtering room and refrigeration for the meat and etc. And for a microbiology major in College of Agriculture, that class is one of the electives to graduate. The class is not bad at all, and surprisingly easy for a 300 level class... Enough with the explaining.

So how was the experience? Well, most surprisingly, I'm all right. Ok, I wasn't all right when I was in the slaughtering room, but I'm all right now. I guess I am feeling fine this time because first, the slaughtering room was quite small, and second, I already kind of saw it second-hand on tv so it wasn't too much of a surprise. In fact, I just ate a sandwitch with turkey breast ham, which reminds me that one of the reasons that I wanted to be a vegeterian was after seeing a documemtary that showed one of the big slaughtering plants in south america. It looked all gory and depressing on the film, with cows lined up for meters waiting to be killed, and killed cows hanging upside down, people cutting them... I actually thought that they killed the cows in a humane way (using bullets to the head), but just seeing how many cows were being killed made me sick. When I heard that we'll be seing the actual slaughtering and inspection process in the class, first I thought there was no way I'm going to see it, but then I sort of felt responsible to see the procedure. I mean, I try to be vegeterian most of the time, but I do eat meat time to time, and it would be a responsiblity of the consumer to know and see where the meat comes from, and how it's produced. Also, it might be a once in a lifetime chance to see something like that again, and I wanted to sort of overcome my fear of it too.

The only thing that made me flet sick during the procedure was the stench, which consistently made me nausiated and want to throw up. There wasn't as much blood as I expected; I guess I sort of imagined the place to be flooded with blood all over, but the blood gets drained into the hole on the floor after the animal's beheaded, and two big guys were in front of me when the workers beheaded the animals so I couldn't really see how much blood came out of it. Which was a good thing in a way, since it sort of helped me to "ease the transition". But the blood was so much more redder... much more vivid red color than anything I've seen, like in a horror film... especially when you look at the worker's arms and they are just covered with blood, holding sharp knife. The skinning part was actually not bad at all (no blood there), and the guts were pretty yucky looking(and extremely HUGE; are they really that big inside or did they expand after opening due to difference in air pressure?) but not too bad either. And the cow being electricuted (after being killed of course) wasn't as violent as I imagiend, so sight wasn't my top concern surprisingly. I actually thought the head of the goat looked sort of cute, with docile, ignorant look on the face... except the small blood draining down from it's neck of course. Oh but the sound...! Some of the machines and equipments they use make really loud and harsh noises, and that bothered me a lot. I was the only one in the class who requested ear plugs, and I frankly cannot believe that othere people in my class didn't want any. I mean, the workers wore them obviously. Also, I could hear a cow mooing before it got stunned, which was real sad... And the pig was literally screaming, so much that at first I didn't know what the high pitched husky noise was until I realized that workers were prepping the pig for stunning. I didn't get to see the stunning procedure (which I didn't really want to see anyway), but I did see the lamb right after they stunned it, and as much as I was afraid that the stunning didn't work and the lamb would wake up jerking, it didn't. After that beheading was so quick and blood drained so quickly that I was sure that the animal felt the minimum amount of pain, if any. The guys in my class seemed pretty casual about the whole thing (or they were just trying to be "macho" about it), and most of the girls were pretty all right too. One of the girls went as far as going "yes!" with her fist when she found out that they were going to harvest animals, which was not the reaction I was expecting... 0_0

And observing the whole thing sort of made me think in a way. What I got out of the observation was the realization that human body is really fragile (and yeah, the whole inspection standards and etc that we were supposed to learn from it... sure). I realized this after seeing the workers working on the goat, cow, and the pig, seeing how they easily beheaded them with small sharp knife, and breaking their joints. Oh I'm sure it looked easy enough for me but it actually requires years of skill to do things that easily, but still. And how easy it was for the animal to be dead. It was so quick. I never really knew it would be so easy. One minute they were living, and next minute they were dead. It's hard to comprehend, since I used think that it's a constant struggle to keep away from dying for all organisms. I mean, it was a good thing that it was so quick for the animals that got slaughtered today, but my point is that living and dying wasn't too far from each other. Also, I never used to think much about it, but I never knew just how easy it would be to damage and break the body too. Really, all there is is just flesh and bone, and they are not that tough as people might think they are. And believe it or not, it was rather surprising to see that all there was to the body was literally flesh, bone, and organs. That was it; nothing more. It's weird seeing all the body parts separate out... head cut, skin skinned, legs broken off at the joints, organs took out, and all that's left is muscle and bone. Just a hollow trunk. It's hard to believe that that's all there is, at least for me, because I used to think there would be something more to it. I dunno, "life" is the word I'm looking for I guess. You know, animals like dogs, cats, humans, they all can express when they are happy, sad, excited, sick... etc. It's just weird to realize that behind all of that is just some muscles, bone, and gut working together... which is also amazing that all of those stuffs actually works together. Kind of funny how people try to hold on to things with greed, because you know, the body's fragile and it's not gonna last forever, and all you really are is just a big clump of organic mass. I sort of felt the same way looking at the head of an actual person in my physio class, but today again I realize it once again. How fragile a life really is, and how hollow the body seems.

it sucks to be an international student

2007-06-05T21:58:00.000-07:00

Yeah. It does. It really does. Isn't it enough that we have to pay twice or even more tuition than those people with citizenship or green card? Or just for a fact that someone like me, who changed his/her visa in states, cannot go outside US and come back in again, not being able to see friends, families, and the world?? Having to worry about my visa expring, my driver's license expiring, and may be not getting the visa at all?

So why the sudden burst about how much it sucks to be an international student? Well here's why. First of all, the pharmacy school. It's tough for internationals, a hundred more times tougher for us to get in. May be one or two people would get in depending on school, but when the application pool exceeds over 400 students, that basically means I don't have much chance. I'm not quite sure about my school, but I don't think I heard of any international students actually attending the UA pharm school now. If I hear something like that, that would at least give me a slightest hope that may be I have a chance. But frankly, I don't think so. Which is kind of weird, when I think about it; since international students have to pay twice or more of the tuition than the "residents" pay, wouldn't the school want at least few more of us even just for the money's sake?? But no, the truth and the fact is, I don't think many US public pharm schools hardly want any internationals students, when they won't even take that many out-of-state kids. And I thought I really had good chance of getting in last time. I had competitive GPA, relatively fair PCAT scores, the interviewer seemed to like me alot. And I had reason. A real reason of actually wanting to go into pharmacy based on my faith and experience, not like bunch of other kids who just wants to have a job that makes a lot of money. I had worked hard for it too. I don't think I've ever cared so much about GPAs, must-get-A-in-class mentality, volunteering, get involved in outside activities, and work to build up my "resume" until I decided that this is truly what I want to do with my life. God it's like a repeat of high school, except I didn't really care about those that much back than. All this hard work and days when I couldn't remember what I did yesterday or what day it was today cuz I was dead tired from studying and working and volunteering and getting all the application materials ready.... all this work was all just for the moment when I would get accepted to the pharm school. Instead I got a letter of rejection, and my counselor telling me that my impromtu essay on the interview day was "unsatisfactory". Oh COME ON! Unless I wrote like a 3rd grader's essay, I don't see a reason to be rejected for a 30 minute impromptu essay. I mean of all things! That was actually the one thing that I was least worried about! I got A's in all my english courses taken at the university and I don't have problem expressing my thoughts with words even though I know I'm not much of a good writer. Of course I do realize that I can't really write a good essay in less than 30 minutes, but I also know that I didn't write a real bad one either. I wrote a lot more decent one than I wrote for the PCAT which I got 3(out of 5) for. So unless all the other kids who got accepted or "alternated" wrote super good 30 min. essays, which I don't believe there is a big difference among all of us, I don't think it's fair to drop me off like that because of some one page essay. I thought I would at least get on the "alternative lists", just so that people who supported me and wrote amazing recommendations for me wouldn't have to see that their efforts to help me got just plain wasted. That was the only thing that really upsetted me, nothing else. I deserved at least that, even if I know that the alternatives won't have much chance either.

But then today, when I was trying to figure out other schools to apply to, I found out that Pharm CAS require social security numbers to verify and send my PCAT scores to the schools. It says it's a must since it's the only way that they can confirm it. My problem is that I don't have a social number. Before I coudln't get one because I was a dependent of my parent's visa, and now that I've switched to the "oh so inconvienient" student F1 visa, I can. But only in one condition; I must work to be able to get a social number, and I can't even work anywhere of my choice, but on campus only. WTF???? Do you know how far the campus is from my house? And how busy my schedule is, even during the summer? I need to bring every will power that I have just to get myself to go to school when I don't have a class to take. It's about 30 minute drive, one hour a day drive to and back. And I don't think I want to drive that long to just go to school and work for $6 per hour or something. The point is, I don't want to work! I just need the stupid 9 digit numbers so I can apply to the damn schools, and I don't have time or will to work on campus. Do you know how inconvinient it is to go around without a social number? It's a real pain, starting with bank accounts and credit cards and so on! Ugh. I don't think I have enough time for a work in addition to attending summer school, volunteering at 2 different places, tutoring, studying for the PCAT, looking for schools to apply to, and possibly hang out with my friends. It's summer time all right, and I want to just relax a bit. Get a life or something. I've been sick with studying all the time, and I want to have time just to do nothing. Is that asking too much? It's the damn social number coming back to torment me again, and I seriously don't want to deal with it but I'll have to. Why does everything get so complicated? I solve on thing out, and the next thing comes into place right away. Really, those people who do not have a problem like this, should be very very thankful. I know there are people with worse problems than I am, but right now I'm just too pissed and stressed. Man I do wish I was my dog, carefree with no worries... nobody cares if he has a citizenship or not!

Attack of the Relatives!!

2007-04-16T08:58:00.001-07:00

Okay. So here's the thing... My sister is getting married this Thursday, and while this is a really happy moment for my family, there's something else too; my relatives are coming! Some people might think "oh four of five people won't be so bad...", but for my family, it's not just five or six that's coming. Four came last week, four are coming tonight, and eight more are coming on Wed. And that's not even a 10% of my entire family/relatives, so there you go. And 12 of them are staying in my house, so I'll probably have to give them my room and sleep in living room or something for a while. I mean, having big family is really fun and everything, but with all those people staying at my house while I'm battling the killer biochem course is not going to be just fun. I think I'm just going to survive through this week somehow, and run away and take refuge at my sister's new condo next week. I don't feel quite good about that either, cuz they are newly weds and I feel like (and I probably am) I'm intruding their new home with my presence. Agent T is nice enough to say that he has no problem with it, but still. We'll see about that.

So how am I doing? I haven't blogged for a looong time (except the previous blog about JB), so quite lot has happened actually. My car window got smashed by bunch of crazy people who also stole my tutoring bag (did I wrote about that already?), my grandmother broke her hip so my mom had to fly to Korea to see her and come back in two days, and I got my grandfather's poems + diary from my other grandma (this all happened in last week). Am I the only person who feels like everything's coming down at the same time? And on top of all that, I had biochem and statistics tests last week too! But for some reason, this week and the future 3 weeks sounds even more dreadful than last week... Let's see; this week I have dinner with Agent T's parents tonight, after-rehearsal dinner on Wed, wedding on Thurs, and orchestra concert on Fri. Yeah. All that with 12 extra people living in my house. I guess I should be thankful that most of my tests were last week; if my biochem test was on this week, I would've literally killed myself.

Oh, and speaking of relatives, my cousin's coming for the wedding too. She's going to stay in Tucson and attend CESL prgram here for one year, so it's going to be fun. I haven't seen her for... for... eight years now?? Well, since I left Korea basically. She's one year older than I am, but we used to be in same grade since I attended school an year earlier. I'm curious to see how she changed; not just physical appearances, cuz I saw her pictures and everything, but just her personality and things like that. She seems to have high expectations and excitement about being here... but I don't think she'll have much fun here though, cuz seriously there's nothing much to do in Tucson, I don't really have close Korean friends for her to hang out with, and next semester is going to be quite tough for me (yet again) so I got no time to play with her. I also found out that my other cousin was starred in another movie that just came out. I watched the preview online last night, and it kinda feels weird to see him on screen. I mean I'm used to seeing his dad, my uncle, on TV because he's been acting for a long time, but it's kind of weird to see someone that you spent your childhood with on media. I haven't been able to see him since I left Korea too, so even more stranger to see him acting. I would've never guessed that he would go that direction, but ah well, people say he's pretty talented. I've never seen any of the movies that he starred in (two movies so far), so I don't know about if he's really good at it or not, but I do know one thing... Actors are actors. The character that you see on TV or movie is not really the person that plays the role, and I'm not about to fall for the role that he plays or played, cuz I know better ;) It would be interesting to meet him personally though. We used to be fairly close when we were kids; not so much when I got into middle school and he was in High school but...I dunno, I just hope that he didn't became one of those snobby actors who thinks they are all cool and perfect or something. Interesting... interesting...

This is hilarious!!!!

2007-04-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

Go see this article!!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html?hpid=topnews

What a joke, what a joke it is! Joshua Bell the street performer, being paid dollars, quarters, and even pennies(!) from a few sympathetic people! Not to mention being ignored by 1000 something people passing by him too! Man, this is just shocking. I mean, people pay hundreds of dollars to just have the chance to hear him live. I really thought with his musicianship and skills, at least small group of people would gather up, but only 3~4 people bothered to stop and listen. I mean, it's Joshua Bell! Forget the world famous virtuoso, he still sounds damn good without those fancy titles, a real... a real ear cather. Just watching him play is entertaining enough; he really does move like he's dodging bullets when he plays. But instead of people dying to hear him play and clapping and cheering, Mr. Bell was straightly ignored... and embarrassed by the zero response from the audiences. I don't think he ever experienced people so directly ignoring him in his life! I don't know what he made of it... must have been a quite shocking experience. Joshua Bell has a lot of guts to pull this off though, especially when he insisted bringing 3 million dollar Strad into a busy metro. I just think that since this was such a new experience for him, he didn't really know what he was getting himself into. Anyways, Kudos for Joshua Bell for yet another amazing achievement ;) Hopefully it was fun(I guess more like awkward) and meaningful experience for him as well.

So I wanted to talk about few things about the article. First up is the article itself. It's quite amuzing to read what happened, but I could tell which sections of the article were written by women; " Bell's a heartthrob. Tall and handsome, he's got a Donny Osmond-like dose of the cutes, and, onstage, cute elides into hott. When he performs, he is usually the only man under the lights who is not in white tie and tails -- he walks out to a standing O, looking like Zorro, in black pants and an untucked black dress shirt, shirttail dangling. That cute Beatles-style mop top is also a strategic asset: Because his technique is full of body -- athletic and passionate -- he's almost dancing with the instrument, and his hair flies." I laughed when I read this... not laughing at him, of course, but just the word choices and the way she wrote it... Come on, I get it, we all get it, but can we focus on the fact that a top notch virtuoso violinist was playing in the streets and practically all the people ignored him? The article seemed to go in off direction time to time, too, talking about Joshua Bell's biography a lot. But I really think they should've wrote it separately on other section just contributing to Joshua Bell's biography only. The flow of the article seemed to stop rather abruptly from a professional musician performing on street to a Joshua Bell article. Come on, it's not a "Joshua Bell" article, it's about if people would have time for a beauty of music in rush hour of a big city. I mean it is part Joshua Bell article, and I like him too, but was it really relavant to mention how handsome/cute/hot he is? The man was wearing a baseball cap!! And why were they mentioning that he took a cap for a three block distance because of his Strad? It wasn't about the looks, it wasn't about Joshua Bell's name (which is quite powerful), and it wasn't about his multimillion violin. It was about the appreciation of the music and his ability to create music, and the article seemed to miss the point few times. And I think Joshua Bell would agree on this too; he probably is a little sick of people mentioning his looks and how world famous he is, and how he has the renowned multimillion Strad.

Another thing was the fact that not even 10 people bothered to stop and listen to him play. People seemed to be quite shocked at the fact that not many people cared about Joshua Bell's performance. If Joshua Bell's performance couldn't draw people in, than what can? But then, when you think about it, is it really that shocking? The settings were tough. It happened in the Friday morning, when people are busy going to their work, lest they be late. People don't normally care to look around. They are busy, they have things on their minds. And when people have things on their minds, people tend not to pay attention to other things that are happening around them. And if it's not a rare sight that a street musician is playing in the metro, most people will just look over it. It doesn't matter Joshua Bell's violin was as loud as a trumpet, the psychology works in a way that people don't recieve all the input that they come across. When my mind is filled with other thinkings, I don't tend to recognize things easily; I don't hear everything, and I don't see everything. It's understandable that people with busy and hurried minds weren't paying attention to the performance, and unintentionally ignore Bell's performance. They weren't trying to be mean or rude I'm sure; it was just that they didn't have time for it, and some unknown musician performing probably wasn't on top of the list of things that their minds had to process that morning. Another factor that adds to this would be that most of people who passed by probably weren't classically trained. Or at least had particular interest in music, or had studied music in any form. Among the three people who notice him the most, one was a wannabe concert violinist as a kid, one played guitar, and one saw him in a concet previous days. The kids of course took notice of him, always open and full of curiosity of outside world, and not clouded by worldy troubles and stresses that the adults go through. They take notice of things more, because they are still in learning and absorbing the outside world, and they don't have the burden of having to worry about anything much other than playing and being happy. They are mostly open too, and accept things quickly. The choice of classical music also contributes... I mean, how many people are really into classical music? They should take a poll or have a study on this; it would be interesting to see. Considering that people who were using the metro that morning were mostly middle-aged, is classical music really one of their top favorites? Or would other types of music, such as rock, blues, punk, hip hop, etc be more appealing? If other instrument were being played or a singer was involved, would more people stopped to see? If somebody played more well known popular music that those groups of people liked, could it have changed the results? I know it wasn't really about testing the "popularity" of classical music but.... Classical music, and especially when good players like Bell interprets them so well, is beyond words. It can get that beautiful; you don't mearly hear it through your ears, you feel it from inside you. When I hear a master piece like Bach, it's not my ear that's listening, it's my chest, my heart that reacts to it. How many people feel that, I wonder? It's not just a moment of light enjoyment; it lingers, almost forever. It's not just from classical music, I get the similar feeling from listening to modern songs, although there are only a very few. But I think it's too harsh to say that people today are losing the abililty to appreciate the arts around them from this one study; it wasn't performed in fair condition. It should've been performed in more relaxed setting, where people were less distracted.

What about me? Would I have stayed and listend? Yes, I think, if I wasn't practically running to go somewhere cuz I was late for something. Even if I weren't paying attention to a particular street performance, just the sound of violin would've captured my attention. And I did, in New York, when I saw some (bad) violinists playing in the subway. And that's because I play violin and have more than average interest in the instrument. If I saw somebody playing... I dunno, a drum or something, I would glance but probably won't stop for it. But once the sound captured my ear I would listen to see if it was good or not, and if it was good, Joshua Bell good, I would find where it was coming from and go see. If I wasn't going to be late for something I would stay and listen. And if I had to leave, I would be a little sad that I'm missing a great performance but walk away eventually. Would I notice it was in fact Joshua Bell playing if I happened to be there at that time? I'm not sure. I'm pretty slow on getting things like that so probably not. I would probably think 'Wow, that person's really good! And he moves just like Joshua Bell too! Oh and he sort of looks like him too. I get it, he's a really good Joshua Bell impersonator! Amazing!' . I mean, why would Joshua Bell, Joshua Bell, play in a metro for money?? Why? How? They should've done it on April Fools day or something... hahaha. But if in fact I somehow find out it was Joshua Bell, I would've stayed for the whole hour even if it would be the end of the world. Ok. I'll be more realistic. If I had biochem test, I would probably force myself to go, but literally weeping while dragging to the class. Man. What an opportunity that those people missed! I would've given him my credit card for all I care, if I could see him play from 6 feet away! Damn it, how come things like this never happen in Tucson???

Good news! or... a Positive one at least!!

2007-02-19T20:07:00.000-07:00

It feels like forever since the last time I blogged. Since then, I had my life's first ever pharmacy interview, and got a very good score on my biochem class. Not so good on my bio statistics class, not because of the fact that I didn't study for it, but because I made some real stupid mistakes like misreading the questions and so on... But whatever. I can make up for it later. So how did my interview go? I thought it wasn't too bad, but not super good either. But from my experience with violin performances, if I didn't do so bad, it probably ment that it went well. Anyways, I don't want to go into too much detail here, but there was one thing that I thought I've made mistake; the interviewer had his business card ready in front of the the table where I sat, and which I decided not to put it in my bag at that time because I was afraid I might not be able to pay attention to what he was talking about (he did talk quite a lot so....). And I also read that not looking at the interviewer or having unnecessary distracting movements is not a good thing to do, so I tried to make myself to remember to take the business card before I say goodbye to him, which of course, I completely forgot about by the end of the interview. I think I was in one of those "nervous" states, where I am talking or doing things that I'm supposed to do, but not in any controlled, organized manner. It works for violin, since you practice so that at the performance you can do what you've been practicing. But for an interview where there's no real "practice" for it, that automatic response doesn't work very well. Anyways while in that hazy state, I forgot about the business card and walked out of the room. Few pharmacy students outside asked me how the interview went, and when I was about to talk to one of them suddenly the door opened, the interviewer walked out, and handed out the business card to me saying "you forgot this". I was literally screaming $%^#*@!! inside my head when I saw him... I said something like "oh, thank you, um, yeah I forgot.. ha...ha..." and he walked back into the interviewing room, making me feel like the biggest idiot in the universe. I've been (and still am) afriad that my stupidity might have affected my interview "grade", so I visited his website on his business card and tried to write on his guestbook, just to prove that I did not purposely left the business card on the table because I didn't wanted it or something. And when the guestbook on his website didn't work for some reason, I decided to email him instead. Hey, whatever works to get the point across, eh? I wasn't really expecting him to email me back at all, but today I got an reply! He said that while he is not able to tell me what my exact grade was, but he said that mine was his favorite among the four other contestants that he interviewd that day. My mouth literally fell off when I read it... but I think it's too early to celebrate yet, right? I still need to wait at least two more weeks to really know whether I'm in or not.

And speaking of waiting for something, my visa still hasn't come yet! AAAAAAAAh! Frustrating! Especially since my drivers license expired! Now my parent have to drive me to places, it's like being in highschool all over again... I never realized how inconvenient it is to not being able to drive. Damn it. For that one to come I need to wait till at least spring break for me to be able to go yell at the immigrations office. Arg. Other than those, I think my life is in pretty all right state, which is all I can ask for...

Crazy snow! (among other things!)

2007-01-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

Ok. The school started. Things are going rather fine for me, and I would have written more about that if I wasn't stupid enough to write up everything and then click a wrong button and erasing the whole thing... Anyways, to summerize, it snowed like crazy in Tucson, the school's boring as usual, and I got invited for pharm interview so I'm freaking out. Here are the pictures!!!

almost at the end of the break

2007-01-07T14:53:00.000-07:00

Time sure goes by fast! Next Wed I'll be starting a new semester. As usual I have little problem with the classes, but I know it'll all work out soon, like it usually does. I'm kinda sad that the break's gone though. I had nice time relaxing and wasting tons of time doing pretty much nothing at all, but I also didn't really get to do some things that I planned to do during break. I did read two books, "Of Mice and man", and "The Great Gatsby". They were all right, short novels so it didn't took me that long to read. Didn't really captured me though. And I think I've become bit old/sinister to think that the little smart guy used the big guy for his advantage; I was quite confused what was his real motives behind killing him for himself. I believed it couldn't be as simple as a trusting friendship between those two. Anyways, it reminds me to renew the books before it runs out of its due date. (I never really buy books when I read for the first time... I will borrow the books that looks good, and then if I think it's a keeper, then I'll buy to keep).

Right now I need to start getting ready for school. I'm thinking of a cheap way to get textbooks, since textbooks are so expansive nowadays... I'll probably get my statistics book from the bookstore cuz I need to make sure the CD is included as well, of course used book. Or since I know someone who took that class last semester, I'll see if she still has them. I'll need to search the school bookstore first to make sure what I need and what I don't need... We'll see. Lets see... what else do I need to do? Mmm fix my glasses for sure, and call some people that I tutor for tutoring times. The first week's gonna be confusing, and I'm all ready for it. If there's one thing that college really prepared me to do, it's realizing the fact that the things that I planned will not come as I think it would, and I gotta deal with the situations. Yup. Frustrating, but I expected it to be so no surprises. Oh I also need to start practicing violin now for real! I wasn't really into practicing this semester, no wonder I don't think I improved that much. And that abdominable piece of music.... intervals are bit big for my hands, so my hand hurts, I get tired soon, and I can't practice as long as I'd like for me to do. And I don't feel like I've improved that much, so naturally I don't feel the motivation to practice. Maybe I'll just ask for another piece to work on. eeeek.

Happy holidays y'all

2006-12-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

Happy holidays! Here in Tucson it feels like the least place to be on christmas, but ah well, that's life. Today was so warm that I walked around with T-shirts... definitely doesn't feel like christmas. Ah the never changing landscape, from spring to winter time. Anyhow, this year's christmas wasn't bad at all though! Yesterday my sister's fiance came over for dinner (ended up staying till this morning), and we opened our presents. I like almost all I got for christmas; Rachael Ray's 30 min. cook book, a massager (which I made Sakana to buy for me when we went christmas shopping... hey, I got what I wanted, right?), bookstore gift cards, and Tarot card set. I would've never ever guessed I would get a Tarot cards for christmas. I mean, Tarot cards on Jesus' "supposed" birthday? All right! So I played psychic the whole morning today and read for my family. Everyone got relatively good readings but for me? Well, the first card that I pulled out was the devil and it predicted obstacles and depression for future 6 months. Why, thank you card, I really like that. I don't know why, but I've never had a single good thing coming out from doing those types of things... may be it's a sign for me to stop looking at the horoscope related things. But hey, it's for fun though, right? Even though everytime it predicts a bad days for me :(

Whatever. Moving on. So the whole christmas gift giving made me to think. It's nice and all, sharing gifts to people, but it's a lot of money and pressure too. Especially when you have to get gifts for people who you don't really really care much about, but have to give something anyways becuz it's christmas. Things like chocolate and pre-made gifts are examples of such things. I think I'll be sick of chocolates by the end of the year, if that is possible. But it's the thought that counts, right? ....eh. I realized that while some gifts are really nice, I don't care much about things that are of no use to me. But then again, it's the thought... the thought... ok! Well, but then if I'm going to waste tons of money on presents, I might as well give something useful. It would be better if I knew what they wanted, but since that is not possible for everyone, why not give something that can be used? The way I picked presents this year was 1. try to get what they wanted (I wanted cook book! yay) 2. get something that they would not buy (something that's fun but won't buy for the sake of saving money; like Tarot cards. I won't buy them for myself but fun gift) 3. for someone you have absolutely no idea what to give them, something useful. Like gift cards. Easy, quick, and useful. I'll accept cash as well, but please, no chocolates in this time of the year!

Anyways, it was a fun day yesterday. I drank the flavored cooler thingie for the first time (mango flavor) and realized with a surprise that it has the same flavor of a health drink in Korea called 미에로 화이바 (Miero fiber??). I used to drink them when I was little, and here I was drinking the alcoholic version of it... brings back memories. I drank the first bottle and started to feel a little light headed, until my sister opened up another bottle and pushed it to me. It didn't occur to me until way later that those fruity drinks probably has at least 250 calories or more... not good when I'm try to get fit!! Well after we had dinner we played Monopoly, and I was probably getting drunk because I couldn't calculate how much my property was worth ($260 + $70= ....430?), couldn't hear someone talking to me (huh? what? did you say something?), couldn't remember whose turn it was or find the dices. I remeber thinking 'my neurons are really getting disconnected here, I wonder how much you'd have to drink to act all weird and have no memory of what happened...' cuz I've seen lot of drunk people, and you would grow up with that if you spent your life in Korea at some point in your life. (It's the cultural thing.) It was interesting nevertheles, and I soon realized yet againg that alcohol for me equals the accompanying headache, and decided to go sleep soon. Fun overall though. Who doesn't like opening up presents?

Speaking of presents, I wonder if people liked what I gave to them. I know one person really really liked what I gave her and it made me happy since I spent the most money on that gift. Right now I'm thinking I should go shopping tomorrow, except I'm kind of scared to go since I know there would be tons of people trying to return and buy items on sale and stuffs. I would ask the Tarot cards if I wasn't afraid of the death card appearing.... I get the weirdes looking cards.

Well, happy holidays for all till the end of the year! I'll see if my luck's any better next year so wish me lucks!!

The adventures of Monday

2006-12-18T16:43:00.000-07:00

Today is the very first day of the official winter break!!! I've got about three weeks or so to enjoy my life before I go back to school again. I'm trying to sell my textbooks without using the bookstore (since I'll be getting like $10 each for books that I've bought for more than $100), and I've been looking through some online textbook buyback websites. They did seem to be willing to pay bit more than the bookstore will, but the problem is, they can take as much money off from what they say they would give, if the book condition is anything less than absolutely perfect. And some sites will not give back books no matter what (if they think the book is crappy, they'll throw them away and won't pay you). My books are generally very clean, except few dents on outside cuz I dropped them couple times, but there's always the risk of the book getting lost in the way and stuff. So instead of online stores, I decided to use the school bookstore's classified section, and listed my books and their prices with my email. I don't really know how many people actually use it though. We'll have to wait and see if anybody will be willing to buy my book. It's (almost) as good as new! Guarenteed!! Oh, and I'll also definitely try the classifieds to get new textbooks for next semester also, cuz it's way cheaper than any used books selling at the bookstore. I'll have to take a look at the textbook before I really buy them though. If only the textbooks weren't so expensive... sigh.

I took my dog to see vet today! He had small round bump of skin growing just outside his ear, which was tiny to start with (I thought it was something like acne and would pop away soon) but now it grew and grew to be..... well, bit big and gross looking. The vet only had to take a look at it for 1 second before announcing that he has.... a Wart! What the heck? I mean it's good that it's not a cancerous tumor or something, but it's a wart? I've never even heard of a dog that has wart on his ear! Anyways, he said it's nothing bad (except that it looks ugly), and there's nothing we can do but surgically remove it if wished. He said something about dogs getting papiloma virus type wart on their mouth and it goes away, but I think he also said that the one my dog has isn't that type and probably won't go away. Yuck. Well, if it's nothing bad, it's probably better to do nothing about it force surgery. I'll leave it at that, and hope that it would somehow magically go away. Weird.

Oh and I also had quite an adventure trying to find the owner of a lost dog. My sister informed me today that there was a dog lying down right outside the front door of the house. The dog was quite gentle and nice, except bit overweight and there was something wrong with her right eye. Really cute orange/brown dog, but no dog tag, no nothing on her. I've seen the dog around the neighborhood so being the responsible person that I am, set out to find her home. I let her walk ahead of me saying "come on, let's go home! HOME! HOUSE!", hoping that she already knows her way to her house, except she kept going into every house that she saw. I think she thought I was walking her, and wasn't really going around to get to her home. But anyways, after realizing that the dog doesn't know her way any better than I do, I decided to just ask people around. All 4 houses that I rang the door bell told me pretty much what I knew already: "Oh, I remember seeing the dog around the neighborhood, but I can't remember who owns it." One person even suggested calling the humane society, but I thought if the dog's from here somewhere, why bother to send her down all the way to the humane society?? So I kept searching, with the overweight and old dog getting tired and tired and falling behind me. I kept her going though by personally cheering for her though, "Come on! You can do it!!". What a good dog. After a while we walked in circle back to where my house was, and I decided to ask just one more time. The lady living next next door recognized the dog, saying that it might be her next door neighborhood's daughter's dog. She seems to remember the dog but not 100% sure that it was the old man's dog, yet she just decided to put the dog in his back yard (he wasn't home cuz he's working), which was not locked. I even got to know the dog's name, Cochina, if that really is the same dog. I asked the lady who helped me out what if the dog isn't his, to which she replied "oh I'll talk to him tonight". Well, I guess it's better than to have her out all day long, but I wonder what the old man would think if he comes home and finds a random dog in his backyard. Thank god she isn't agressive; my dog would bite anybody who tries to touch him (he's paranoid of everything he's not used to). It striked me soon that I just waisted bunch of time walking around, cuz if I had just walked to the right I would have found out who owned her pretty soon. Well, the dog wanted to go left, and I trusted her to know the way, but of course it alwasy has to be the opposite direction. There's a good lesson here though, never leave a dog without it's tag! I've found few lost dogs (for some reason dogs in my neighborhood likes to venture around a lot) with collars on and immediately took them to home, but in a case like this, it's nobody knows. And it's really dangerous too, the dogs can be run over by cars and stuff. So people, keep an eye on your pets and always have some identification on them!!! Gee, I really hope that the dog is in the right place now....

Good day, Good day!

2006-12-14T18:57:00.000-07:00

So, all my finals are over as of yesterday!! Wooohoo! My liberation day has come. It feels wonderful not having to worry about having to get things done at certain times, or just studying and going to classes in general. I'm very relieved, and savoring every momonent of freedom. And the real first day of break, which is today, went very well!! I found out that I have A in my Psio class, which is awsome since I was right at the border line between A and B, and all of it depended on the fourth exam that I took. All good, all good. And then I recieved a huge 5000 page"physicians desk reference" book/encyclopedia thing from the head pharmacist of the out patient pharmacy. He gave it to me because it was 1995 edition and bit old, and he thought I might use it when I get into that pharm school. (He even signed the book with my name and date.)That book is thicker than phone book, weighs tons, and filled with information about every single medicine that exist in the universe. And I got it for free! Awsomeness!!! Who cares if it's old, it should be super expensive to get one in the first place!! So now I feel like a doctor, except looking through the book a lot of stuffs are still a foreign language to me. One drug about muscle relaxation I understood a little bit, since I studied from psio. It's actually little scary that my "education" is in some use now. Seriously, this semester was the one that I actually "learned" the most, which is sad and scary, but ah well. I'm thinking that once I'm in professional school, it will be a lot like this semster.... tons of things to study, one after another piling on each other and no break in between. And at the end when I look back, I'd be surprised that how much informatioin got packed insidy my over stuffed brain. Ah well, that's the road ahead of me I guess. Thank goodness I'm not going to med school, because that would be even more crazy. Anyhow, that was a wonderful gift from him, I can't wait till I look through them during break playing pharmacist. I might just give up on it soon. Or just end up looking at the pictures only.

I got another gift from the kids that I started to tutor; I got two cute little refrigerator magnets. Nothing really useful, but it's the thought that counts. The little boy, who's in 5th grade, is adorable; probably because I'm so used to stuck up and rude little boys that I'm shocked that there's actually a decent, polite, and not hyperactive boy for once. He's still very child like (I mean, he is a kid of course but....) but willing to do his work well. The first boy that I had who actually cares about school works! He wonders around a bit, talking about what happened in his PE class and whatnot, but that's normal for a kid and I don't mind it too much. He really wants me to come to his school band concert though, and asking me if I would come, with his puppy eyes and "oh please please please" voice trick. I said I'm not sure, because bunch of 5th graders playing their first instruments are not so appealing. But I think I might go, just to make him happy. The older kid, 11th grade, is super smart, and she cares about doing well in school too. She's the most attention focused kid that I've ever tutored; she doesn't wonder around a bit but concenstrates on doing problems from the moment she sits down till the moment she leaves. She doesn't even waste a minute. It's quite amazing, and thankfully for me, very easy to tutor. I feel a little bad though, bcuz I don't think I'm being much of a tutor since she's so smart. And heaven knows that I don't remember the pre-calc stuff at all, it's been 2 years! I am able to help her a bit with the AP chem stuff, but I hated gen chem stuffs and I had really bad professor so it's not like I really remember all the stuff. Plus I got B in all my gen chem classes, whereas I might have chance of pulling the very first A in organic chemistry. It's amazing how the kids are so motivated and able to focus well. Is it genes or parenting I wonder? Oh and they are from Washington D.C so may be that had something to do with it too. Anyways, I got two unexpected gifts, and I feel like it's my birthday today LOL.

If all my days in winter break goes well like this one, I won't envy my friends spending classic holiday times in NY. It's a short break, about 3 weeks and a half, but that's good for me. I'm looking forward to relaxing, catching up on reading magazines, hanging out with freinds (banannie's coming!!), and reviewing japanese for the placement test, and getting ready for interviews. I wish it never ends, except that it's just beginning....

2006-12-03T10:33:00.000-07:00

Re: Chopin - Fantasie Impromptu Op.66 [7 year old kid!]

Now this is what I call a true prodigy... Just amazing. I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it for myself. Sure I've seen other 7 yr olds playing Chopin before, but not one that is up to this level. Who would think that it's a little kid playing when just hearing by the ears? Simply unbelievable... The expression, little pauses here and there, retardando, the powers in his little fingers, it's hard to imagine this level of musicality from a child. Makes me realize yet again that there really are geniuses born among normal people. I wonder what it is that makes that kid different from other 7 yr olds learning piano. Sure they must have born with it... different brain structure or something, and of course some hard work too. Great footage since I'm working on writing about child musicians in conservatory, one of them being a crazy prodigy like this one. Wow. It just made me set a new definition of child prodigy.

Liberation day

2006-11-28T18:20:00.000-07:00

Yes. I am finally liberated. Liberated from the grueling torture of chemistry lab and the lab write ups. Today was the day that I took the Ochem lab final, and the day that I submitted my oh-so-professional-looking "formal report". The TA final wasn't as hard as I feared it would be, but the common final was actually harder than I ever would have guessed. Normally for a lab like this one I never really studied for it, but for this one I actually studied little bit, and thank goodness I did. It actually helped. I think I did O.K (which means I did as well as I hoped I would), and I'm just glad that it's over now. After this, no more chem lab for me forever muhahahahaha (or I hope). Next runner up is ochem lecture test and all other finals, which I'm not really worried (haven't had time to think about those yet), I'll just take one by one. I'm just happy that I finally see the end of the semester; I've been hoping for this day since the very first day of semester. Very sad indeed. For some reason, I hated this semester. Oh wait, did I mention that already? Well, I'll say it again, this semester is the worst one I've had. Yuck. Never never ever would I want to go back to it. Ever. Which is kinda weird since I'm not doing so bad in classes... but just sick of it all, like other students I've talked to.

I got an email from my orchestra director, asking if I was "game" for the orchestra next semester. I replied I'll have to take the night one due to schedule conflict thingie, to which he replied "then you'll have the chance to be in 1st and be a leader." Hello! Like I want to be "a leader" and care about wheather I'm 1st or 2nd violin!!! Ugh. I have no idea what he thinks of me. And frankly, don't care. But then I sorta miss the "group" or ensemble playing... playing solo pieces is not very fun. It's like playing by yourself when there's no one else around. Ensemble is a lot more fun, which was why I liked orchestra playing so much in High school and the only thing that actually made me to like the instrument. I kinda miss that feeling. Especially after I saw a quartet playing in master class few weeks ago. But whatever. I'll soon be complaining about how much I'm suffering from the "can't tell if I'm in tune or not" syndrome from that night orchestra. Lets hope that he doesn't make me sit in the way front, cuz I don't really know how to count and need somebody in front of me to follow....

Violin practicing is going all right. I don't want to push myself going "I'm going to learn to play this much by next week", so it's been slow progress. The piece is difficult, especially for my small hand since there are some notes where I have to stretch my fingers the max. and still can't quite get it. It's bit frustrating, but it's not the first time I had one of those to tackle, so I don't mind it anymore. I'll get it when I get it. And Sam understands that for me, which is a blessing really since I never had a teacher actually counted it in. That doesn't mean that I can get away with things though, which I think I shouldn't be allowed to. The weird thing is, practicing Vieuxtemps makes my shoulders hurt all the time, whether I'm practicing and I'm not practicing. Sure my left hand gets killed during practice, but it's usually fine when I'm not practicing. May be it's used to getting killed almost everyday that it doesn't mind it anymore. But my shoulders, they hurt when I go to sleep, when I wake up, and in between those times. Ok not necessarily "hurting" anymore, but I can sorta feel the muscle all the time. Not a pleasant feeling. I think it might be because I'm forcing to use some of the muscles that I didn't really use much before, and it's just aching from all the excercises(??). Or I'm playing weird. Hopefully it would go away soon.

Oh and I also got my letter of recommendations from Ms. Casey today. I don't think I'm allowed to see what she wrote for me, but she sent it to me anyways. Oh wait, I'm allowed to see it, but not allow to change it. Aaaah. But anyways, I was very thankful that she took time to write it for me. I was kinda worried that she would remember me when I contacted her, since it's been almost whole year I've been in her class. I knew she would write a good letter for me because for some reason she thought I was a good writer and she gave a lot of compliments during classes in front of the class making me feel bit like a teacher's pet. And she wrote all those nice things about me... I mean, she can really write. It just strikes me how good of a writer she is, cuz if I tried to say the same thing that she wrote, I probably can't make it sound as good as she did. A true difference between a good writer and just a regular one. Anyways, reading the letter made me feel like I really am that exceptional individual that every college of pharmacy would want. Wow. I'm not used to listening or reading something complimentary, and it's a little uncomfortable... or weird I guess. I wonder how the real "important" people in high positions feel when they go to places and people says all these nice compliments to them. They might be just used to it I guess, and don't think much of it... but would they really believe that they are that awsome significant person that people say they are? I wonder, I wonder...
Well, the only thing left for me is getting those tests out of the way, and wait for 2 other letters and my application fee to get to the admissions office. Please please hope for the best results.

One another (annoying) thing! Today I got home, and while I was about to park I noticed some kids and their mom was parking also in front of my house (my sister tutors art at home now). As I got out of the car naturally I said hi to them. And when I was walking in, I heard the mom saying "Oh I was just really surprised that she can drive! I mean she just looks so young!" to my sister! I mean come on! I'm a JUNIOR in COLLEGE! How old did she think I was, a 14 year old? Well, forget about "looking so young", I got that look off in high school! It was probably because I'm tiny, that's why! God it drives me crazy! Like that one time when I was a sophomore in high school this stupid one person asked if my family needed two kids menu! Ugggh! And today I wasn't dressed like a kiddie, either! I dunno what I need to do to look a bit older, either put 3 inch make up on my face or have a longer hair. Arg. This really isn't what a college student should hear.

Heaven answers my prayer

2006-11-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

Finally some good news for all! Or for me! So today in lesson, Sam told me that a lot of people will be gone next semester. And with the slightest hope, I asked "Oh really? Who?" and he goes "Well Hannah is graduating, Liz is going to another school, who's going where blah blah, and SONNY is done with school too." And I was going 'Whaaattt?' Man! The world knows that I don't like him, and ever since the freshman year I've been wondering when he's gonna graduate and go away. I was really worried too, because I'll be doing the night orchestra thing next semester and he was conducting some of the pieces with that orchestra this semester, and I thought he would conduct again next semester which would make my life like hell. (Oh and yes, people in that orchestra doesn't really like him either I noticed). But he'll be gone! I won't have to see him again or get goose bumps whenever I get an accidental eye contact with him. Uggggh (shudders). So why don't I like him? Well, first of all, he's such a show off. And if there has to be one person that I hate the most, it would be the person who think's he/she's better than someone. I mean, self pride is all right, if you keep it to yourself. But that guy will show off like crazy before/during/after orchetra by playing real difficult stuff, and glares and yells at kids who he thinks is not playing the "right way". Oh, and he likes to instruct people on how to play well too, like people in the orchestra don't know how to play their instruments. I don't care if you are the world's best of the bestest musician on the earth; Don't act like you are better than anybody! God! Drives me nuts! Simon plays better than he does, but he doesn't pick on somebody just because he thinks he's better. Anyways, I didn't like him that much in the first place, and then SOMETHING happened, which is probably why I avoid guys who have some interest in me. Uggggh don't think don't think don't think. I mean, that guy's like 40 or something, grow up! Gosh no wonder I don't have a boyfriend, or a decent guy friend. Damn it! Anyways, Hallelujah, heaven answered my prayer and that guy's gone. Please, please PLEASE, don't disappoint me and just leave. PLEASE!!!!!!

Anyways, back to my life. The application is almost done, I still need to get my essay revisions back from Mandy, except he's not replying and he said he's gonna do them two days ago, so I dunno what happened to it. I really really really wanted to get done with it today, but it's not likely. I looked over it three times now, and I'm not seeing any errors so it's good. I'll look over it the fourth time and send them, hopefully by tomorrow. Please Mandy, just read it over and send them to me. Oh and Thanksgiving is coming up! I'm not really that happy bcuz I have two tests, a chem lab final, and a formal report due right after the thanksgiving, so it's most likely that I'll be spending the whole time just studying and working on them. Ugh. Like my friend said... "Thanks... for all the homework!!!" I miss the days when I didn't have to do so much. This semester is just a killer. Definitely the number one "I hate this semester" semester. Not a one single easy class, and just tons of work. And the Thanksgiving "break" is like four days! How's that a break? All the 1~12th graders have five days off!! This is not fair! The only thing I'm looking forward is the food, although I think it's horrible that millions of turkeys will be massacred just for this day. Horrible. Just grow up and line up to die. Would it be fun to live if you were born to just die? Horrible horrible. And I bet their living condition is just horrible! If I live by myself I would not buy turkey or ham.

Another thing.... I'm sick. Yes, sick of school, that too, but real cold/flu virus sick. I think I got it from Sakana, unfortunately. It seemed like the cold medicine that I bought was working the first 10 min, but now I feel sick again. May be I felt little better bcuz I had soup, I dunno. I thought about buying cranberry juice thinking that the acidity of it would help me feel better, but that I realized that it's a virus that I'm dealing with, not bacteria. I'll see how long it would take for my throat to be normal again and my temperature to go down. Take care not to get cold/flu!! It's not fun and it sucks if you have tons of other stuffs to do too! Take care indeed!

Vote for me!!

2006-11-09T19:33:00.000-07:00

Hello there! It seems like I've been writing very often these days, but whatever. The application for pharm school is due real soon (not really, but the recommended submission date is next Wed). I've got everything down except the essay part, which I'm procrastinating big time. I should get on with it though, really really. The interview skill semina from pre-pharm meeting and the essay questions (what have you done to know about pharmacy? What are your strength and abilities...? etc etc) makes it look more like I'm a senator running for an election or something. Dear people, I have these characteristics with these background, and I've done this much to prove that I'm qualified, so vote for me bcuz I'm ur most ideal candidate! It's CRAZY! The interview thing is out of this world. The lady who talked about interviewing skills talked about every single detail of things from the cloth and shoes I should wear to what I should smell, act, look, and talk like. I think I'll do real well if I just look at what people do when they run for electionk, with nice hairstyle, clothing, and smile on their faces. And the questions they ask, I need to know so much about myself to be able to answer them well! Not just why I want to become a pharmacist, but about what happened in my life that was significant and had some kind of meaning to it. I should start preparing soon or I'll be making up stuff as I go on, and pray that they buy it. But right now I need to focus on the application first.
I got the letter of recommendations figured out, and I sent test message and got two responses back. I still haven't heard from the pharmacist yet, so I think I'm gonna wait till till tomorrow to email and bug him about whether he got the message or not. Another stress source, but it'll work out hopefully.
I played in the master class today!! Nervous I was, but I was more sick of the piece that I've been dragging on for 3 weeks so it was more of "Ah whatever, get this thing done, and I will never have to play this again! I'll be liberated!" than "Oh my god I have to get it perfect". Seriously, I cared less about it than my accompanist did when we were rehearsing. He wanted to get itty bitty details right, while I was more of "ok, sure, whatever". But I guess the fact that I didn't care so much helped in turn while I was playing, because I played fairly ok. And for me that's a complement, since I almost never say I played well. I was nervous, with my irregular breathing pattern and sweating hands and heart thumping and the ever drying throat, but I was somehow able to focus. I didn't think when I was playing either, nothing like "Oooh I missed that note, crap here comes the harder spot", probably bcuz it wasn't that of a difficult piece technically. That helped too for sure. I was just focusing on.... on what I don't remember. I focused on music when I could and focused on dealing with my nervousness, reminding me to breath because I tend to keep breathing in and in and forget to breath out when I get nervous. It wasn't the best I could play, but without any major disaster, it went ok. And Sam thought I did pretty well, again saying that I was very well prepared. He said I didn't even look like I was nervous, which was totally not true, but I succeeded in bluffing. I think when you let yourself look like you are nervous enforces the fact that you are nervous and it makes things worse. I always trying to pretend like it's no big deal, and tell myself to just play and make music and forget about other things. I still don't play loud enough or accent/forte enough, which is one thing that I know but just won't fix. I might be scared of playing loud, I dunno. I'll leave that upt to psycologist. Anyways I think it was a success that even though I was nervous I could control it down somehow. I think I might be winning the battle of stagefright.... with stage fright going down!! Today I also got the fingerings for Vieuxtemps 5, and the notes are crazy. It's gonna be hard, I'm already pulling on my hair going 'oh shoot what have I gotten myself into' and I haven't even practiced it yet, but... I'll try, definitely try. I just can't wait till winter break honestly. ( or more like graduation date!!!)

Finally

2006-11-02T21:05:00.000-07:00

Greetings!
I'm in science library at school, trying to waste little time before going back to my house. You see, my sister, A.K.A Sakana, is going to Phoenix for some piano competition tomorrow, and if I go home, she'll still be practicing with my mom coaching her. And seriously, if I hear another A note from Piano again, I'd puke. As for me, I have test tomorrow, the oh-so-feared Ochem test that is. I just started to really study for it today; I planned to study hard yesterday, but I was sick. On Wed, I had Psio test, and I bought Red bull to keep me awake and alive, which I was for that day. But next morning I was half dying from stomachache, probably from the caffein overload. Then I started to feel sicker by every hour, and after practicing vioiln I couldn't stand it anymore, plus Sakana was playing the damn piano again which drived me CRAZY. I thought 'well, I'll go to sleep now, and I'll wake up at 4-ish to study', which didn't happen of course... I woke up at 7 instead. But I'm not sick anymore, so that's all good. We'll see how I do on the test tomorrow.
On Halloween day, I spent $15 on buying candy fearing that kids would come and I would have nothing to give them but Ramen (Which some guy did gave out to my sister when she trick or treated.... hmmm.). And Kids did cam,e but only like 8 of them. Last year there were far more kids visiting, but I guess my dog barking drived them away, or my neighborhood isn't just that cool. May be people in this neighborhood gives out carrot sticks rather than candies, and kids don't like that. Funny thing is, I walked around campus hearing that quite few people didn't get to treak or treat when they were kids. Some of the parents, like someone I know, thought it was "evil" and pagan, so said no to it. My TA's mother thought it was 'begging' so she said no, which I think is more of a "reasonable" reason than calling "evil". Anyways, I made list of all the costumes I've seen, and believe me it was hard thing to do, mainly because I just couldn't tell what some of the kids were trying to be (I thought this one kid was wearing her church choir uniform). And some kids didn't even have costume, and they demanded candies. I guess being "normal" kid is more scary than anything, I dunno. There are tons of candies left for me to gobble up, but ever since I read about how bad processed sugar is for your body, it's not very attractive. I don't really like sweet things that much either. Whatever.
Oh one cool thing that I got to see for Halloween was real human had cut in half (more like quater I guess) for my psio lab. It looked more like rubber and plastic than real human had, even though it had eyebrows, eye lashes, and even nose hair. Not very scary since it didn't look very human, but definitely cool. It made me think that we humans think we are all so great and spiritual and something valuable and holy, but realy what you are is some piece of organic stuffs. When you are dead, you really are as dead as the next piece of block found in random streets. A thing. Also made me wonder who cuts up these donated bodies so nice and neat?? Now that would be more freaky to see than playing with already cut up pieces of body. Oh I also got to see real human brain also, which wasn't that great... not the cutest thing you'd see in life, all tentacle-y and brown/gray soaked with preservatives. Surprisingly small though. Well sheep brain was smaller so that says something I guess. Yucky stuffs.

Today at lesson I played the usual stuffs,Romance with pianist and Bach. I'm really sick of Dvorak now, even though I didn't say anything in lesson. I think Sam's a little tired/frustrated that I'm not really showing "character differences" and/or real accents/forte when I play, and I know that. I know when I'm not really doing it when I need to do it, it's just that I simply don't really want to. I don't feel excited about playing the piece, and since I'm not that into it I can't concentrate and I end up getting into the autometic pilot mode. At the end he told me I sound good and all that stuff but I dont' think he really means it, more like something that he just says after someone finishes a piece. I know it cuz I think I sound boring and dead, and it probably is. When he says I play Bach well I can believe that a little more, since I worked on it and I don't think I sound so bad on that one, even though I might not sound super nice. Bach's also little bit easier; not too extrem expression driven character contrast. Anyways, he thought Vieuxtemp 4 or 5 would be nice for me to tackle next, although he thinks it would be bit hard for me. Vieuxtemp is one of the pieces that I wanted to learn to play in my lifetime, so I immidiately said ok. I'm listening to the 4th one but I think 5th one is way cooler, so I'm gonna go for 5th one. When I said I'll do it he said I was brave, but I think it's more like I'm not really understanding what I'm getting myself into. When I start to practice though, I'll probably pull my hair out and cry "Oh why did I say that I wanted to play this @$%^ thing???", but I like it, and who cares if I play crappy? People already know I'm not that of a great player anyways. Screw me, Screw them haha. And it's better than playing list of pieces that I don't want to play anyways.
It's 9:44 now and I think I'll go home and try to study some more... hopefully Sakana's done beating up the poor piano by now. Ooops and they called me twice already. Well, Nighty night now and wish me good luck tomorrow!!!

Pics

2006-10-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

New violin!
Hmm it doesn't look so small right next to my violin, but wait till you hold it!!

My flowers at its peak For explanations, see below :D

Some things

2006-10-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time (again)! My flowers all died out now, but the leaves are still in good condition. So let's see, how am I doing? Eh, Ok, I guess. I slept for like 12 hrs last night... I had headache starting from 3-ish yesterday and couldn't get it off until about 9 or so, when I fell asleep. Of course I was just lying down on my bed in hope that the headache would go away, but heaven knows I fall asleep automatically whenever my head's on the bed. Since Wednesday, my cousins from LA came over. It was good to see them again, especially the kids, who grew like magic bean since last time I saw them. My dog, for some reason, is doing very well with my nieces; he's not trying to bite their hands off every time they look at him, but instead sits next to them with no expression of whatsoever. He doesn't want them to touch him or his toys though, but it's still an amazing improvement. I wanted to be able to spend more time with them though; I was going to school and dead tired all the time, and they are leaving today :(

Anyways, the big(?) one, 5 year old Ashley, got her vey first violin yesterday! Her mom wanted her to learn instruments, and while she was here my cousin thought it was good idea for me to go and pick a vioilin for her. We got a $104 1/4 sized violin for her, which is so tiny that it almost looks fake. And the sound? Uh.... yeah...squicky. Hey, I think I'll name it squicky!! Hahaha. Well, the sound doesn't really matter that much for violin of that size or for the beginner, the kid's gonna grow up real soon and when she gets bigger she can have better ones. Since she missed her first two lessons (it's a group lesson offered at her church) for coming to Arizona, my cousin insisted that I teach her two lessons worth of material to her, which I tried... and realized that how difficult/uncomfortable/unnatural it is to hold a violin. Well, she's doing real good with putting her violin under her chin, but she's not really getting how to hold the bow. When her thumb's round, her pinky is straight, and when her pinky is round, her thumb becomes straight. Really super cute though, and she's trying real hard (except that she just wants to jump ahead and grab the bow to make a scratch sound out of her violin, or play my violin). I really don't know how anybody teaches little kids to hold a bow and actually play something out of that tiny violin of theirs. My teacher in highschool had 3 year old kid as a student, so it's possible obviously... Mmm I don't know. When she gets back to her home in California, she can learn more from her real teacher, which I don't think would be that effective with 15 other little kids with their little squicky violins can't wait to make any kind of sound out of it. Aaah the music, the music.

And one other thing. Halloween's coming up!! And every kid's show, like JoJo or that weird old guys with four different colored shirts, or 3-D animated shows, are going CRAZY over the halloween stuff. And what I notice more from those kid's shows are that almost all of them have some kind of pop music involved, with fancy dance moves. This one show that I saw had three guys (ok, one girl and two guys) dressed up as clowns??? with their face painted to the point that their real face is not recognizable (which I understand why if you are doing something like that for a job... I wonder, are they doing it bcuz they love kids, or bcuz they can't get any other jobs that pays that much? How much do they get paid anyways? May be I'm just being mean???), rocking with their colorful kid-like instruments and making kids go wild. Like in a rock concerts, with loud musics and crazy lightings and kids jumping up and down, singing about being best friends. Huh. Things have clearly changed from when I was a kid. It seems like they are promoting more of pop culture so kids can grow up buying more pop singer's records and dance/dress like them. Anyways, the point that I'm trying to make is that most of those kids shows are dealing with something about Halloween, about getting candies and dressing up with different costumes. And when I asked my niece what she's gonna be for a Halloween, she said that she's not doing anything. And then she asks her dad, "We are not doing Halloween, right?" her dad says yes, and told her that they are going to have different party at their church. He sorta looked at me and said that Halloween isn't very christian, so they are not doing it. And what do I say to them? Nothing! If that's what he believes in, ok. But I think it would be a real disappointment for her when she watches all these shows about going door to door dressed in cute costumes and getting candies and carving pumpkins, and she doesn't get to do any of them. Especially when she goes back to school and kids ask her what she's gonna be for the halloween, or how much candy she got. They are gonna give out candies at the church too, as to compensate for what the kids are missing out. Like that's gonna hype the kids up. Come on, where are all the Halloween spritis?? Jack from the Nightmare before christmas will weep! My niece seems to be ok with it, but I feel kind of bad for her. I mean, Christian or not, it's there so that kids can have some fun! What do they think, that their kids gonna turn devil worshipers if they dress up as little fairies and get candies from people? Ugh, things like this makes me frustrated; why can't people be little bit more flexible? This "This or no" principle of christianity is what I just hate about that religion, this no tolerance or no flexibility for things other than their religion ONLY. Can't they decide what's really bad for them and their kids without concerning some book that who knows how much it changed from when "god" "wrote" for people living few thousand years ago? They are willing to believe in some piece of writing than other evidence lying around, may be they are the ones who needs to pray that someone will "open the eyes of their heart". Or their logic. The more and more I see something like this, the more it drives me away from it. It's my hope that the kids grow up taking up their own views of the world, not just blindingly believing things that are thrown at them. My cousins would not like that at all though. Sigh. Just grow up being a nice, loving, and caring people kids, and that would be good enough for me!

(Oh, I read little excerpt from Illinois senetor Obama's book in Times magazine, and he talks about how his mother taught him about various religions and world views, and I agree with most of what was said about her views. I was going "Finally, I know someone had similar views as I do!" all the time as I was reading it... and know that it is possible to raise someone without religion, that growing up without a particular religion doesn't make that person to turn out as a murderer or thief ( I mean, of course). It's good stuffs, good stuffs!

Tired, tired

2006-10-19T19:40:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I blogged...
Well, school started for one thing, and when school starts, I'm dead tired for some mysterious reason. Right now it's 7:38, and my eyes are already closing. As soon as I get home and have something to eat, my body seems to take that as sign to automatically go to sleep. I've been falling asleep without really meaning to a lot these days, like falling asleep around 9 O'clock-ish and waking up at 1~2 O'clock. If I really have something to do like studying for test, then I'll force myself to wake up and do what's necessary, but a lot of times I just go right back to sleep until 5:30 or 6. Now that's a lot of sleep. And I still get tired after school. And yeah, I want to go to sleep right now. But I won't.
So today in lesson, my teacher told me that I'm doing pretty good (finally for once!!) and said he admires me for being able to prepare for lessons with my busy crazy course load. Now this was little weird becase this week was the week that I didn't practice the most since semester started. I skiped practicing for two(three??) days, I'm bored heck out of the Dvorak Romance now so I end up not practicing that much, and Bach was getting a little old too. And I thought I was gonna play Dvorak with the pianist today so I practice for that mostly yesterday, except that the pianist couldn't make it and I ended up playing Bach, something that I've practiced like twice since last lesson time. And the teacher thought I made a lot of improvement. Hmmm... When I practiced like hell, I didn't get much of a praise from him, and when I didn't practice, he thinks I'm playing better. Wait a minute here.... how did that work?? I of course did not confess that I didn't really practice this week, so I felt kind of guilty, like getting priased for something that you didn't really do. But still, if I somehow sound better, that's a good thing, right? I really really really don't want to drag on with Dvorak for another two weeks, but I guess I have to deal with it.
I have psio and physics tests on monday, and gotta study for it all weekend. I think my cousins from LA and Korea is coming over to my house next week, so I'll have to get a lot of work done, which sucks. I like when family comes over, but can they please please not come over when I'm in school? I can't get anything done, and I can't spend time with them either. I dunno, I'll just live at school or something. Oh and the kids.... the ever attention demanding kids... aaaaaah. It will be like 7 years since I've seen one of the cousins coming over so it'll be interesting. He and I were never really close or anything though, mainly because he's a lot older than me and he doesn't talk that much. Funny thing happened last year though, when my other cousin asked me to call him to ask for something:
Ring Ring
Him: Hello
Me: Hi, oppa, this is Yujin.
Him: Who?
Me:uh, Yujin.
Him:..... who's Yujin?
Me: .......... (What the heck?? He doesn't know me? Uhh... what do I say to him?)
uh, you know, cousin... in... Arizona...?
Him: ............ (30 sec silence). Oh! ohhhhhhhh! Yeah!
Me: (....wtf?) Yeah, um, unni wants something from you blah blah blah... -_-+
Guess how disappointed I was. Now I realize people just starts forgetting about me since they haven't seen me for 7 years. Thank you very much. I think I'm gonna give him a little hard time about that when he comes here... We'll see we'll see. In the mean time though, I'll need to study and study yet again. Damn those loong meaningless studies!

Picture time!!!

2006-09-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

Guess what this is!! You are right! It's Hana! It grew and grew and grew... and pop! There's the first red flower it produced, and many more to come!!! Yaaay~ Would this mean a good lucks to me from now on??
Yet another pretty Tucson sky... This year was very weird, the most rain that I've seen living in Tucson. And for others who lived longer than me here too. I mean, the streets were flooded that I had to take detour to get home. Sam think's it's the global warming... hmmm.
I wish I were my dog. Sometimes.

Me and my sister found out that my dog loves to go under the table when the table cloth is hanging down... like he's little hiding place. He used to put his toys inside and sleep there too. So we got this grand idea to build him a doggy tent... and we did. like the above picture shows. And all we needed was to put fabric (the kinds that painters put on ground when they paint), and we did, and... it looked more like a homeless people's house than a cute doggy tent that we imagined. And yes, my dod won't even go in there. Darn. But nice try, team.

It's been a loooong time

2006-09-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

Howdy.
School's started and I'm having no life again as usual.
I feel like I should update on what I've been doing...,
Uh I'm trying to get F1 visa, but for some reason they only gave it till May of next year, meaning that after that date I'll probably have to get kicked out or something.
So, to prevent that, I'll need to get a real major, which I've been thinking about getting one lately anyways, and I have no idea which one to take. Science major of course, but which one? There will be a major fair at Oct. 4th so I'll go there and try to figure it out.
Violin! I found out that I'm flat in places where I'm not supposed to, and not flat enough when I need to. Time to get my ears twicked. Oh and yes, I'm out of that Orchestra, thank goodness.
As far as classes go, physiology was so far easy because it mainly dealt with general biology stuff, but now it's switching gear to skeletal system. I'll need to memories tons of bone names and structures and tissues etc, etc. Now I'm a little scared. And I don't think I did so well on the lab practical either... studying an hr before the class was apparently not a good idea. I'll find out that on monday also.
I'm having a Ochem test on monday, which I really really need to start studying for. Lab's are going ok, it's not too bad for now but we'll see.
I also have physics test on wed, I'll study for that tuesday. Right now I'm just taking on the day one by one... but Monday would be the biggest bump.
Pharmacy application is STILL not up yet!!! I get anxiety attacks every weekend trying to find out if it's up or not. I really need to start looking up other schools, but right now I just don't have time. Oh I did join the pre-pharmacy club; I payed the fees already but I still need to submit the applicatioin. I went there 20 minutes late and people were sitting in floors bcuz there was no more sit. I did get to see couple familiar faces from classes and etc. I learned that the viola player in the orchestra was waitlisted for pharmacy program; good for her. I'm a little worried for myself, if I'll be able to make it or not.
Oh oh, and I went to see the Lion King musical!! Awsome, very pretty. Kids would love it for sure, even though there was an annoying baby who cried constantly. Not for babies, I think. Musicals are awsome in general, true magic of theatre. Now I was actually more surprised that TCC music hall is able to handle such a production. Um and yeah, I did think the stage was a little bit small. People were just busy clapping scene after scene anyways. Adults loved it more than the kids lol. It reminded of Bananie, someday I'll see her on the stage blowing up people's mind!! And than I'll tell people that I know her ;) Can't wait to see her on stage!

Another miracle...

2006-08-23T22:47:00.000-07:00

Well, it seems like I've finally have a clear sign of having S.Virus; I've been stressed sick about the whole orchestra ordeal for last two days now, not being able to stop myself from thinking about it. Um compared to Sarah I'm nowhere near close to being "paranoid", but still it wore me off quite a lot. I couldn't even get to sleep last night for a looong looooong time, which is unusual because most of times I'm out as soon as I close my eyes. I think it was mostly because I drank really strong mocha frapuccino(<-spelling???) that day but still....

So anyways I decided to write an email to my orchestra director explaining everything and how I'm really stressed out due to classes and stuff, and I was really really scared of what he was going to reply because I just knew he would say it's not a good enough reason. He's famous for being really bitchy to students who has to miss rehearsals or not participate, and I know someone, a really good player, quit music because of him. But then I remembered what my ochem teacher said the other day... "there's a boss of every bosses in the world. If you don't like something, go talk to someone higher up. If that doesn't work, just keep going up the ladder... remember, your TA is not a GOD!" lol. I was ready to fight and talk to the person "higher up" if he would ever say that's not a good excuse, but amazingly, when I got a reply, he said I tried hard enough to fit the orchestra in, good luck with everything and he'll waive it.

Ok. So this is one of those moments when you put all the gears up, get an emergency kit, hide under the basement and the storm just passes right infront of you over to another side. I'm glad that nothing happened, but all my worrying and planning and the stress came from it seemed pointless. May be it was. May be I really should stop stressing about things so much. Anyways, I still think it's ridiculous that I'm being forced to take classes that I have no desire to take in order to take a class that I actually want to take, and if I don't take the class that I don't want to take then I don't get to take the class that I want to take. I mean, what's the deal here? Shouldn't people be in orchestra because they like it, instead of being dragged there? At least for non music majors. I really want to change this policy, it's just plain stupid.

Oh and since I'm not taking orchestra this semester, I decided to take in physics class that I didn't take during summer. Today was the first class; the teacher seems nice and she teaches things well. The only thing that worries me is that it's her first year in this college (she has taught at other colleges) and apparently had little idea of how things work and stuff. As long as her tests aren't way hard, which I hope it isn't, then I would like to stick to it. But since Ochem and physio is a lot of work already, I'm kinda scared to take extra workload into my schedule... And the drop/refund dates are before the first test so I don't have idea of how I'll perform in that class either. Arg, who came up with the idea of colleges and universities anyways???

Who knew I'd be so evil

2006-08-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

Ok. So the story goes that I'll have to play in Philharmonic orchestra this semester because the symphony is going "chamber" this semester and they'll only focus on people who major in music. I don't mind playing in Philarmonic except it starts at 7:30 in the night and ends at 10:00. If you think it's just an orchestra so they'll end early, you are wrong. I've done it in during freshman year and they never ended it early. They did go over the time few times though. So anyways, I really really didn't want to go over the whole ordeal again, especially when they are planning to play Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by Mozart, the one piece of music that made me never want to play Mozart again. I've played it in 3rd grade, played it again during sophomore year, and I do NOT want to play the piece again. I'll go crazy, I know I will. Isn't it ridiculous that someone who's not even minoring in music would be forced to take such a time consuming classes? I've not been able to take classes that I want or get classes in the times that I want because of that orchestra for last two years. Believe me, I enjoy playing in orchestra. But I have my priorities as well, and if I had choice, I wouldn't take orchestra just because of what it does to my schedule and my time. So anyways, here's a confession I need to make... and because I don't want Cura to know about this (even if there's almost no way he would somehow get to know this information; for perfect crime's sake) I'll write it in Korean.

오켐 공부에 피지올로지, 피직스까지 하는 중에 오케스트라를 또 하라니 -_- 장난하냐? 낮이라면 또 몰라. 왜 밤에 하는데 -_-+? 보니까 금욜에 오켐 시험이 쫙 깔렸던데, 화목 밤마다 악기들고 그 난리를 칠수는 없잖아? 집에서 학교까지 거리가 얼만데 가뜩이나 피곤한 사람한테... 그래서 오늘 콘덕터를 만나서 쇼를 했다. 쇼를 하려는 생각은 아니였는데 하다보니 나도 모르게 내 role에 푹 빠지게 되어 버려서.. =_=;; 어떻게 된것인즉, 일단 하기싫어서 안한다고 한다면 그인간이 허락해 줄리가 없으니까 스케쥴 때문에 그런다고 뻥을 까면서 굉장히 아쉬운 척을 할려고 했는데... 내가 정말로 오케스트라를 못해서 아쉬워서 그런건줄 알고 착각을 한건지 아니면 그 지지리도 못하는 오케스트라에 나를 어떻게 너어볼라고 하는 속셈이었는진 모르겠지만 마구 붇잡더라 =_= 그 클래스 못바꾸냐고, 클래스 선생한테 꼭 좀 잘 말해서 바꿔보라고. 내가 자꾸 안된다고 들었다고 하니까 명함까지 주면서 자기한테 연락하라는 말까지 전하라고 그러던데. 자꾸 그런식으로 가니까 내 정신도 햇갈렸는지 갑자기 억울한 생각이 들면서 눈에 눈물이 고이고;; 내 표정을 본 선생 어떻게든 될꺼라고 "don't be upset" 막 이러시고 참... 내가 오피스를 나오면서 나 지금 뭔짓을 한거냐 하는 생각이 막 -_-+ 아씨 내가 할려고 한건 이런게 아니란 말이다. 뻥깐거 들키면 어뜩하지?
일단 내가 입을 꾹 다물고 있는이상 알수는 없을꺼 같은데... student ID도 안줬고.. 그래도 들키면 대략 낭패;; 젠장; 나중에 물어보면 그냥 그 schedule conflict되는 클래스가 너무 힘들어서 드롭 시켰다고, 오케스트라를 다시 하라고 그러면 힘들어서 못할꺼 같다고 또 뻥을 치는 수밖에...
아 나 진짜 이런 뻥쟁이가 아니였는데. =_= 젠장 왜 이런 오케스트라가 나를 manipulative 거짓말쟁이로 만드는 것이람.... 어휴 정말 -_-+ 대모라도 해서 policy를 바꿔놓던지 해야지..

Anyways, because I'm not taking orchestra this semester, I decided to take physics. That means that I'll have three science classes this semester; physics, physiology, and ochem 2nd semester. I had Physiology lecture and lab for the first time today, and it didn't seem so bad. Mostly about bunch of memorizing stuffs, which every Koreans who went to a Korean middle school and up is trained to do and which I'm fairly good at. So physiology won't affect me too much I hope, and they said that the average of class was pretty good so I should be able to pull it out. Physics, I really don't know. It'll depend entirely on what the teacher is like. I looked online and it seems like the professor's a woman, and I'm hoping that she's not one of those mean ladies who yells at people for not being able to understand the material. So far my physio TA, Physio professor, and ochem professor seemed very nice, and I hope it's continues through my other two instructors. If I don't like the way the physics prof. teaches or the syllabus says I have only two tests and no curve, than I'll drop it without hesitation and take the night orchestra, just because I'll need something to fill up my time. The class that I'm really worried about is Ochem 2nd semester. The prof. is really nice as I said; she's like a granny (yes, very old) and she's from Belgium. But she showed the class statistics from last time she taught ochem; 33% got E from her class. That's one out of three person failing the class. You could almost hear people screaming "Whaaaat!" when she showed the class this. I mean, 33% failing rate? I don't think people did that bad on the 1st semester ochem... I dunno. I'll just pray that I'll be able to pull out at least B on that class, since pharmacy won't accept students with C or lower on ochem classes. Since Ochem's so tough, I don't know if I should take physics or not. It all depends on how easy the class is, of course. I'll see what will happen for sure on Wednesday. I think I've really learned to not stress over the stupid schedules, I should be proud of that at least.

Identity

2006-08-18T21:54:00.000-07:00

Below I wrote about a video clips of north korean children performing, which were just simply amazing. Anyhow, the more amazing thing that I learned from the blog where I saw the video was that the owner of the blog is a third generation Korean-Japanese. That means, his grandparents came to Japan and gave birth to his parents, who than gave birth to him in Japan. So what is so surprising about that? Well, his blog was a korean blog, and he wrote in Korean. Yup, the entire thing in Korean, with no Japanes words (except where he has to explain some Japanese culture, place, or names...). I mean he's a third generation person. Not just a second generation, but a third. That meant that his granparents were able to teach his parent enough Korean to teach him when he came, fluently. If he didn't introduce himself as a third generation Korean living in Japan, no one would have guessed he was born and raised in Japan. It seems like he did travel to Korea a few times, but still. And he has strong sense of being a Korean, like he would like to be married to a Korean person rather than a Japanese person. I guess the strong "Koreaness" that he feels himself to be entitled to might be from the sufferings that Koreans had to take during Japanese occupation, and thus he feels that he shouldn't forget that he is Korean after what they've been through.

The reason I'm bringing this up is that this is a strong contrast with what I'm seeing in US. I've met a lot of 2nd generation Koreans who are born in US, and it's hard to find people who are really fluent in Korean. I've seen two people who can be considered 2nd generation koreans who are fluent in Korean; one was minister's daughter and thus had a lot of experience with Korean speaking adults and kids, and the other... I think she said that her mother doesn't speak english so she speaks Korean at home. But the usual thing that goes around in most Korean people's home is the son/daughter speaking english to their siblings and parent, and the parents talking to them in Korean or sometimes english. So the main problem(?) that I've seen in with kids who aren't fluent in Korean is that they can understand korean fairly well, growing up listening to their parents talk, but they have difficulty speaking, yet alone writing. Writing is a bit more complex, like knowing how to spell and space words correctly, so I understand that they might not be able to write in Korean. (Even I get confused sometimes and I've been here for only 7 years. It really is difficult when all you write is pretty much in english...) Anyways, so it's really really really rare to see somebody who can actually write Korean like they can in English. If those kids grow up and become mommys and daddys, chances are that their kids, the 3rd generations, will pick up even less Korean. So that's the reason why I was so surprised to find that the blogger was a 3rd generation Korean. I mean, Japanese language is similar to Korean so it would be slightly easier to learn it, but still.

Another is the ability to call oneself "Korean". What makes a person Korean or American or Mexican or Russian? I consider myself Korean because I was born in that country, was raised to pledge allegiance to Korea, and spent most of my life in Korea. But what about the kids who were born and raised in other countries? Should people consider them Korean too? I witnessed my friend arguing with her mother few years ago, her saying that she's American because she was born here and lives here, and her mother reacting as if she's shocked to hear her say such a thing: "What do you mean you are an American??! You are Korean!". Korean people get unusually sore when they here Korean people calling themselves anything other than Korean. It's almost as if no matter how many generations you are, you are a Korean if you have ancestor coming from Korea. And they'll be especially kind to those who they think is Korean, and Koreans have this special ability to stick to one another wherever they are. I don't think it as a bad thing at all, but they do also have tendency to attack somebody viciously if they deny being a Korean so it has both sides I guess. (Oh and they really swoon over foreigners who claim to love Korea for whatever reason, and change their citizenship to Korea... It's pretty much like "I don't care who you are or what you do, you must be a good person if you like Korea. You have to be. If you don't like my country, then you are the worst jerk that can be imagined. What the hell is your problem??" It's very interesting to say the least.) So anyways, I think I know where my friend's coming from though. She was born in US, went to US schools, studied US history, learned US songs, and the time she spent in Korea would be less than a few month if summed up. It's understandable that Korea would be more of a foreign place to her than home country. And most kids who start to attend preschool/kindergarten forgets Korean as soon as they soak up English. My cousin's five year old daughter refuse to speak Korean with her fellow Korean friends ever since she started school. My cousin pretends like she can't understand anything in english and thus forces her daughter to speak Korean at home. She says her daughter complains "why can't you understand what I'm talking about, mom?" though... ;) Here's another example: My family was watching a soccer match between Korean and US one time and Sakana asked "Who do we cheer for, Korea or America?" I couldn't belive how dumb the question was. And then she says "We support America, right? We live in America now". I yelled back "what are you, an American or Korean??". My sister was in 2nd grade and she was even dumber back then (if that's even possible), but it brings up a question of how a person identifies his/her nationality. Are we Korean because our ancestor's Korean? Or are we Korean when we live in Korea, American when living in America, and Japanese when living in Japan?

The blogger said he would marry a Korean because he thinks that Koreans should only marry a Korean, a very traditional thinking, and one that many Koreans think to be true. It surprises me because in America it seems little bit more liberal. I wonder how many 2nd and 3rd generation living here would say that they'll marry with Korean because they are Korean. My sister's going out with an American guy, I don't think even a 1st generation is thinking that she should be married to only a Korean guy. This issue is really really complex.... and I'm really really tired now.... I wonder if Americans would get angry if I tell them I consider myself Korean, not American?

Oh and another funny thing... Few asian guys asked "what are you?" to me, and it threw me out every time. What am I??? And then they say "What nationality are you?" and I go ooooh. But seriously, what am I? ;)

평양학생소년예술단

2006-08-18T20:40:00.000-07:00

방금 다음에 소개된 블로그에서부터 평양학생소년예술단의 공연 동영상을 보았다. 초등학생정도 되는 아이들의 다양한 종류들의 악기연주, 무용등 소름끼칠만큼 정확하고 절제된 모습에 많은 사람들이 불쌍하다느니, 가식적이라느니 하는 비난적인 답글을 달았다. 확실히 음정하나 틀리지 않고 하나하나 일치된 동작들에 무대에 올라와서 긴장된다는 모습은 하나도 찾을수 없고 하나같이 생글생글 공연 시작부터 끝까지 공연후에 얼굴이 경직되지 안을까 하는 웃는모습 등. 뭐랄까 사람들이 말하는 "자유로움"은 없는거 같아 보였지만 그래도 아이라고는 믿기 힘들정도로 대단한 공연이었다. 그냥 누가 음악 틀어놓고 립싱크 (-_-???)를 했다고 하면 더 믿어지겠다; 하여튼 사람들은 그것도 트집 잡더라. 애가 애답지 못하다고. 애들이 할짓이 못된다고. 다들 저렇게 될때까지 얼마나 시달리면서 훈련받았을까, 얼마나 맞으면서 배웠을까 -_-, 하루종일 놀지도 못하고 연습만 할텐데 너무 불쌍해 죽겠다 이런식인데... 과연 그럴까? 정말 북한에서는 애들을 가둬놓고 연습에 연습만 시킬까? 그럼 그런식으로 죽어라고 배우면 과연 그 동영상에서 본 애들처럼 연주할수 있을까? 조금 알아본 결과, 평양학생소년예술단에 들어갈수 있는 아이는 어렸을때 재능이 발탁된 뽑히기 엄청힘든 그룹이라고 한다. 그냥 잡아다가(??) 시키는게 아니라 어렸을때부터 여러가지를 시켜봐서 재능이 있다고 생각되는 아이는 뽑혀서 국가에서 무조건 밀어준다고 한다. 누가 그랬듯, 한국에서 재능도 없고 관심도 없는 애를 엄마들이 무조건 피아노에 바이올린에 미술에 어렸을때 부터 비싼돈 퍼부으면서 붇잡고 고문시키는것보단 낮지 않나? 난 그런애들 많이 봤다. 하기도 싫은걸 억지로, 재능도 없는애를 무조건 시켜서 만족할만한 결과가 안나오면 선생탓으로 돌리는 사람들. 그리고 동영상을 본사람들은 애들이 너무 기계적이라고 징그럽다고 하는데, 초등학생정도 되는 나이때 정말로 자기만의 예술적 감각을 표현할수 있는 아이가 얼마나 될까? 시키는데로 그대로 따라할수 있는것 만이라도 대단한거다. 나는 시키는 데로조차 따라하지 못한다 -_-; 예술적 표현도... 알수없다; 일단은 연습부족이라고 해두고 =_=;; (재능부족인 것인가 ㅠ_ㅠ) 이런것도 밥먹고 이짓만 하면 기계적으로 할수 있는건가? 모르겠다. 훈련해서 되는거라면, 나도 어려운곡 죽어라고 연습해서 음정한번 안틀리고 연주할수 있었으면 좋겠다. 그게 중요한게 아니라는건 알지만, 딱 한번만(;;) 버벅데지 말고 해봤음 좋겠다 -_-; 울언니 남친이 방금전 일생을 누군가를 엔터테인 하는데 바쳐야 한다는게 불쌍하다고 말하는데 진정한 performer 이라면 당연히 그렇게 하는게 옳은일 아닐까? 작곡을 하든, 연극을 하든, 공연을 하든간에. 난 정말 그렇게 배우는 애들이 자신들이 정말로 싫어하는데도 불구하고 억지로 시키기 때문에 해야 하는건지 아니면 훈련이 힘든데도 불구하고 좋아하니까 하는건지 아닌지 궁금하다. 내생각에는 그정도 재능이 있으면 실력이 늘면서 악기에 관한, 무용에 관한 애착도 갈것 같은데... 그래도 본인이 아무리 재능이 있어도 억지로 시키는건 좋은게 아니다. 예술단에서 공연하던 아이들이 자라나면 무슨일을 할까? 선생이 되서 또다시 그만한 아이들의 신동들을 키워낼까? 솔직히 말하면 애를 잡는건 남한도 하면 더했지 못하지는 않을꺼다. 미술학원, 음악학원, 학교, 한자, 영어과외, 수학과외, 심지어 체육과외까지. 그러고 보니 한국애들, 참 불쌍하다.

Decisions.. decisions...

2006-08-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

It's time when I really need to think about what to do about applying to pharmacy school. I was originally thinking that I would just apply to my school and if I don't get accepted I'll apply to again and other schools as well next year (since a lot of schools I've looked at requires more pre-requisite classes than my school), but I realized that I want to be able to get in this year. The truth is that, I'm getting old. I'm already a Junior. That means, if I don't get accepted this year, than I'll have to apply again when I'm a senior, when my friends are getting ready to graduate and work. Aaaah I really don't know what I've done so far... feels like nothing much, just chasing classes after classes. I have other option too, try to get a major between that time. But nah, what I want to do is pharmacy, not some other crap. Not that I would mind getting a degree as long as it's science related, but that's besides the point.

So that option is not pratical, and I'm moving on to the next debate of State Vs. out-of-state. I need to keep in mind that now I'll be considered a "international student" now, and going anywhere out-of-state would mean super expensive tuition, even more than the expensive enough regular pharmacy school tuition. But for private schools, it's pretty much expensive for everybody because the tuitions rates don't differ. And I recently discovered that some schools won't even accept people who are considered "international", so I'll need to research on that as well. Ok. So I'll probably be able to get a grant or scholarship or loan of some sort, and let's say that tuition isn't much of a problem, whether I need to pay over $25,000 per year or not. What other factors are left?

Ok. Region. Where do I want to study? I really have no idea. I'm thinking of somewhere in west, but Washington and California doesn't sound good, as they are very selective of people in their own states. I wasn't so sure about east because well, I thought living expenses and tuition would be more expensive as it usually is. But than it's not like I'm doing an undergraduate study, it's pharmacy school. It's expensive everywhere!!!!Aaaaagh I really don't know. And it's not like I can send 5 applications; I'm not gonna ask for 5 letters of recommendation without really annoying the person I'm asking, especially I'm already asking for their time out for writing those. So what should I do? Just apply to one school?? No way, that's too risky. Then what, apply to midwestern (another pharm school in Arizona)? That's a private institution and it's as expensive as if I would go to out of state school. Hmmm. May be I'll research schools on east now... And see what would happen. Why does everything have to be so complecated???

Hooray for the internet

2006-08-14T23:18:00.000-07:00

I realized yesterday that it's that time of the year when I need to audition for my school orchestra. I looked up the audition date and found out that it's this thurday... there's probably no way that I'll be prepared for it by that time. I sorta didn't want to audition anyways and was going to lie that I couldn't make it to the audition date... And also I'll probably end up sitting somewhre in 2nd violin again, which I don't really mind since it's usually easier than 1st violin part so I almost never have to waste time in practicing it. But I'd like to play 1st violin part too sometimes; it seems like the conductor only lets violin majors to be on the 1st violin section. Wait, no, my friend was biochem major and she was in 1st... but then she was in the orchestra for 5 years now. Oh and I did play 1st violin part(???) in bach St.Matthew's passion... but I think there wasn't really a 1st or 2nd violin part in that music... hmm. Ooooh and I just remembered that I didn't want to be in 1st violin section anyways because of that person. Heaven forbid. If I can sit somewhere front in 2nd again I'll be more than happy. Or that person hopefully graduated(god why doesn't he graduate? he's more than old enough to have already graduated 10 times!) and no longer does his usual show offs and ridiculing of others. I just got worried that my teacher will announce that he has too many students and that I'll have to learn from that person instead of him since John left... Hopefully it will never happen, and if it ever happens, I'll quit rather than having to stay in the same room with him. (And don't look at me like I'm over-reacting Cory!! You'd be also freaked out if you were me!)

Anyways, the music doesn't seem too hard, but I won't know it until I actually play it in on my violin. I do have the option of just playing what I've learned in two days on Thursday, and I don't mind how bad I'll sound or what the conductor would think of me (like I really care), but I do not want to make a fool out of myself in front of my teacher... especially when I haven't been really into practicing this summer... Ok I admit it; I think it's safe to assume that I didn't practice for at least half of the summer, if not more than that. Now I don't really want my teacher to know about that, although he'll probably notice it, and I'm not gonna confess it directly either. I should really stop comparing myself to others and just focus on enjoying the music but still...
So anyways, I tried to see if I can find the sites where I can listen to music so I can have an idea of how the piece is supposed to go. Years of experience told me to search in Korean search engine, and look for blogs... and I found all three of the music!! Shostakowitsch(loooooong and confusingly spelled name.. German??Ah, Russian of course!), Mendelssohn, and Strauss! For some reason, there are many korean blogs where they put up tons of classical musics. They used to let me download it too, but now they don't. But at least I can listen to it all I want for free. So far I didn't have any success in searching for classical musics that let me listen to in US webs and blogs... without having to pay any fees at least. Shoud I consider it as a cultural difference? (Oh yay~ I just checked and I got an A on the lab... not too surprising, but still good.) So anyways, I think I'll just practice it now and audition it when the school starts... the conductor always sends out emails trying to make everyone who wasn't on thursday to audition, and hopefully my teacher won't be there for that 2nd audition.

Updates...

2006-08-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

So, the summer physics lab ended as of today... It's 1:07 pm and I'm very hungry, but too lazy to get up and find something to eat so I ended up sitting here blogging. The weather's crazy hot and humid; it literally knocks you off when you try to walk outside. I really don't think human beings are mean to live in dessert area. We should all just move out. But then, there are no real "perfect" place, we might as well stay here. Aaaagh I'm relieved that the physics lab is over now, but now I gotta get ready for school again. I think I'll probably end up getting an A in the lab, but don't know for sure. I do kinda want to go somewhere though, like a real vacation for a change. I dunno. It's too hot. And I don't want to think when it gets so hot. I'm finally getting used to my high powered new glasses; I've been dizzy for few days, although everything seems amazingly focused and sharp. I got really dizzy when I have to turn my head and change the direction that I'm looking at, but today I had almost no dizzyness. I wonder how bad a person's eye can get... I think I saw glass thickness chart that had -9 power on it, but what happens when a person's eyesight gets worse than that? They get blinded??? Or is it simply impossible to have that kind of glass on someone's face? I'll definitely go for contact lenses next time... or lasik.. Oh, and I am debating wheather to get mp3 player or not; it might be nice to have one but than I don't listen to music that much anyways... We'll see, we'll see.

Some good news for me at last!!!

2006-08-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

I met with my pre-pharm advisor Thursday, and she told me that I don't have to retake PCAT because I got a very competitive score. Wooohooo!! I was kind of worried about that, because while I did (surprisingly) good on the reading comprehension and quantitative ability, I got 60-something on verbal ability (damn those vocabs) and Chemistry. Other things I wasn't too worried about, but I wanted to do better on the chemistry, so I was thinking of retaking it to get it up to 80% or so. Which isn't very likely since I'm weak on chemistry overall though. But the advisor told me that 65% isn't even a weak score; the cut line is 50% and they'd like to see the score around 70%, but 65% is close enough. So as for now, I'm very very happy that I don't have to study for it again, and that even though I was worried about it and almost got frozen to death in the testing room, I got fairly good score. The only one thing that wasn't cool about it was that I bought an AP Chem review book for PCAT chemistry, and threw out the receipt so I can't return the book anymore. I'll have to find some ways to sell it... or look for the receipt even though I'm pretty sure I'd threw it out. Anyways, I thank the god of red flower for my recent good luck... and hope it continues throughout the whole year (and hopefully get me in the pharmacy program...).

The advisor also told me that since I have good standing in both the GPA and PCAT score, I'll be most likely to be invited for interview unless my letter of recommendation says I'm a serial killer or something (<-the exact words that she said). She almost made me feel like I'm a good candidate and that I shouldn't worry about it too much. This kinda tempts me to just apply to my school only... What she told me sounds like too good to be true, like I'm really gonna get in this year. I'm pretty sure she was just trying to boost up my confidence though... But the thing is that, getting interviewed doesn't mean that I'll get in; they drop a lot of students there too. So now I have a new stress source of getting through everything. I've got pretty much everything done, except that I now need to learn how to present myself. People who are invited for interview have already passed the first test, which is showing how academically strong they are. There are other things like community involvement and the commitment and desire to study medicine, but mostly it's about academics. Then there's the interview... the second test, so to speak. That's the real thing; that's where it gets really competitive because now the competition's in between people that have about the same qualifications. The advisor told me to focus on 'what makes me different from others', so I can stand out and be remembered by the admission commity... The thing is, I don't know what makes them to decide to accept the student and not accept the student, especially when there are limited number of spaces avaliable and there are hundreds of people applying for it. Last year about 200 people got interviewd, and only 81 people got accepted. It's scary to think that I might not be one of the selected 81 people. I'm getting old too; I'll be junior this year. I need to start getting some degree or do something with my life. I think it's better for me to apply more than just this school this year, looking at the statistics. Researching for school's another thing though; out-of-state fee is ridiculously expensive, and a lot of schools require classes that I haven't taken already. Aaaaah I don't even know if I can really trust the advisor when she said that my current PCAT score will be fine...

Will I live, doctor?

2006-07-31T20:46:00.001-07:00

This morning I had my eye exam done... and found out that my eye sights has gotten worse. A lot. I mean I knew it had gottten worse because I couldn't read the white board in class (probably because I refuse to sit anywhere near the front area in addition to my eyes getting worse), but I didn't expect it to be this much. I can now proudly(??) announce to the world that I, too, might be qualified for legally blind people's club. So how bad are those eyes of mine? Well, right eye sight is -8.25, and the left eye sight is -5.75. I've never even dreamed about reaching the -8 mark, but I finally made it. Just great. I mean, what did I do to turn it so bad?? I don't think I did anything bad to the eyes, at least not purposely. I'm just afraid my new glass will come out with inch thick glass lenses. It's thick enough now, and they predict that it'll be thicker for like 2mm more. Is that even possible??? I think I've reached the line where wearing glasses isn't the option anymore without my eyes looking normal; may be I should try for contact lenses or LASIK. The problem is that, contact lenses I've tried brands after brands but found it enormousely uncomfortable (the doctor can't find anything that would fit my eyes), and LASIK I heard that it should be done when my eye's aren't getting worse anymore. Also, because I practically grew up with glasses attached to my face, I think my face looks weird without them. May be I just think that way because I'm not used to seeing my face without the glasses, but I really do think it looks better with the glasses. Anyways, the grand total of today's eye adventure was $307, $160 only for the special lenses that would help the lenses to be less thick. God. I dunno what's less expensive, having glasses, contacts, or getting LASIK. May be LASIK will be better in a long run, but I heard that there can be a irreversible side effects.... I want to know what makes the eye sights to go bad in the first place, so I can at least prevent it from going even worse. I just hope that I don't go really blind when I get old.

Rainy dayz

2006-07-28T20:24:00.000-07:00

It's very lovely outside... I never knew how easily I can breath with some humidity.
These days I feel like time's running away from me for some reason. I feel like there are tons of things to be done, but not much time. I wish I can somehow stop the time and just rest for a bit. I'm sure a lot of other people feel that way too. And the solution for this would be... Sleep less!!!

what I wrote yesterday but couldn't post bcuz stupid internet died

2006-07-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

Uhh I'm getting tired and my head's hurting, a classic sign that tells me I'm really tired. Couple things happened today... let me rewind it back to this morning. This morning my sister's friend came over, and brought DDR with her, again making me to realize how much I suck at that... After that, went to physics lab and almost died from being freezed alive. Oh, and it was very cloudy and humid and rainy day overall, which was just awsome. I haven't exprienced a day like that for a long time, and was practically praying for it in my dreams. I actually missed having to use an umbrella. I should live in place where it rains every other day... So, after that, I decided to go to the Office of International Students to ask about changing my visa status to F1. I got to talk to the advisor very quickly, and she gave me list of things to do to get it processed... which is really complicated, and I think I want to ask one of my friends to help me out on it. Some things are just bit confusing... I don't think they should make it nearly as complicated as it is. Whatever.
After talking with the advisor on a way to the parking garage, I met Lehan. I haven't seen him since last spring semester so I was happy to see him again, but I soon learned that his fiancee broke up with him two weeks ago(returned ring and everything) and now he's leaving U of A to go study in Texas. All I could say was "I'm so sorry" over and over again, cuz I know he must have had hard time even though he kept saying he's all right now. It's so weird that his fiancee would break up with him, cuz they were together for 8 years and they seemed very happy together. I thought they looked cute together. He certainly seemed to like her a lot. He's such a nice guy too. I've never seen him being angry or mean to anybody ever. I don't understand why bad things only happen to good people; he was one of those people I wanted to see as being very happy. Poor him. It made me to say "And I thought I had bad summer" after seeing him. My best wishes of good lucks and happiness to him. I feel kinda sad that he's leaving though, cuz he was a nice seating partner to have. Just because he was such a nice person overall, and easy to talk to. He was the one person who felt really sorry for me for not being able to go to the Mexico music festival with the orchestra, and that helped me to feel better at that time. I wouldn't mind having him as my seating parter for the whole semester. (He might, though lol). I think quite few people from orchestra left now, some graduating and some changing schools. And somebody that I actually want to go away doesn't seem like he's gonna go away anytime soon. Just great. I'd get rid of that dude and bring Lehan back if I could. Arrrg.
After I got home, went out to Walmart with my sister to make an eye exam appointment, and found out that it costs only $49. Wooow. It was something like $60 at Costco and they said I had to wait till August 31st or something. Good deals, good deals~~ I'm looking forward to the appointment and getting a new glass, because I can't see things very well now with the current glass I have now. The eye allergy must have worsened my eye sight. Haaaah. Now I might qualify for legally blind people's group. Also went to Target and TJ max and got some shopping done... I found a small Nautica blanket that's really really super soft and light that I wanted to get, but there was no price tag attached to it. When I asked for a price check, it came out to be $10!! Yes! Where on earth do you find a Nautica blanket that costs only 10 dollars??? That was the best bargain that I got today, and I was really happy. I have weakness for soft blankets and pillows and things like that (Comfy things!!), and I've been looking for something like that for a long time. Good deals...! Oh yeah. Oh, and my returned camera works, except that there are scratch marks outside and the LCD screen shows mysterious small dots on them. But the picture came out nice and clear, so it got a pass from me. I don't want to deal with sending it again and waiting for another week.
I also talked with Cory today online, second time since the summer started. Ok. He's kinda getting annoying now. I never really felt like this about him before, but now he's just annoying me. It's nice that he's finally trying to keep in touch, but all he asks me is just dry things like how things are going with me and that’s it. After that, we don't have much to talk about. And it's so obvious that he's not over Sarah still yet, and he's pretending like he is or he's not admitting/saying that he isn't or I don't even know what. He talked about what Sarah's doing now and stuff, which I know already because we are good friends but it's not really relevant to what I'm doing here. And what am I to him??? A regular friend? Just a person he knows? Someone to have as a back up plan? Why is he talking to me now, and not before? He just frustrates heck out of me. I feel like I'm a bonus material that people don't really care about when buying things they need, but still good to have it around for some use. I feel like he just talks to me so that he can have some ties to her, and so he can have someone who knows her. I don't even feel like he really wants to know how I'm doing either. If he thought of me as at least a friend, he would have contacted me earlier during summer. He obviously has been talking to Sarah throughout summer, so he was capable of keeping in touch with people. What the heck?? Does he really want to know me as a person or not? What is this? Would he even consider talking to me if I wasn’t friend with her in the first place? God, I wish he'd just say things straight out, not making circles around it when it's just plain obvious. It annoys me when he starts talk about Sarah, because I really don’t want to have anything to do with what’s going on between them. The same thing goes with her too, she doesn’t tell me things that I consider she would tell me if she thinks of me as a close friend, especially about guys. She would only tell me things about what’s going on with Cory if I ask her, and the other things I’d just have to get it figured from small things that I notice, which I’m pretty good at and which makes frustrated because she wouldn’t tell me exactly. If only he could be more confident of himself and be able to move on, it wouldn't make me half as frustrated. I don't even know what he wants from me. And I'd hate to be awkward with him either. I'd like to ask him questions, just because he wouldn't tell me anything exactly, but I feel like it's none of my business so I end up resisting my temptations and not ask. May be he does want me to ask him, so he wouldn't have to confess things directly to me. You know, the "I'm only telling you this because you asked me" kind of thing. But still, if people don’t tell me things that I think they should tell me about, I take it as I’m not a good enough person to be trusted, that they don’t really consider me as a friend. Ugh. I just know that when I start going out with some guy, he'd better not be like Cory.

편지

2006-07-22T21:51:00.000-07:00

책상서랍 정리를 하다가 예전에 뉴욕에 있을때 한국에 있던 친구들로부터 받던 편지를 열어보았다. 전에 만들었던 편지함(??)이 터질듯이 가득 차 있어서 이번에 그냥 Memory box로 정해서 기억에 남는것들을 저장할 곳을 마련했기 때문에 옜날에 있던 박스를 없에고 새로 만들기로 한거다. 여기와서 받은 카드도 넣고. 뉴욕... 나에게 있어서 정말로 정말로 힘들었던 시간이다. 아무도 못믿고, 하루도 뭔가 알수없는 불안감에 시달려서 맘편히 있을수가 없었다. 이것저것 맘에 들지않는일은 투성이었지만 아무말하지 않았고, 한국에 있을때는 상상도 못해봤을정도로 소극적으로 변해갔다. 밖에서 보이는 나와 안에있는 진짜나를 분리하는법도 그때배웠다. 아무도 눈치체지 못할정도로. 아니, 누가 알았을수도 있다. 하지만 아무도 나에게 위로같은걸 해준사람은 없었고, 그런걸 바라지도 않았거니와 일단 내가 겉으로나마 태연히 지낼수 있다는것에 대해 자부심을 가졌다. 종교에 관한거나 가치관이라거나 그때 가장많이 흔들렸고 고민했다. 내가 정말로 힘들다는건 돈을 들여가면서 나를 뉴욕까지 보내준 부모님을 생각해 겉으로 보여질수 없다고 생각했고, 정말로 가기싫어했던 교회는 고모네집에서 살아야 했기때문에 모순이라는걸 알면서도 억지로 다녔다. 친구도 내가 알던애들과는 너무 다른애들이 많았기 때문에 무조건 접근하기가 어려웠고, 학교에서 친구들은 몇명 있었으나 정말로 내맘에 드는 아이들은 아니였다. 그런 애들과도 겉으론 친한척 했으나 내 마음까지 줄정도의 애들은 아니였다. 정말로의 문제는 내가 한국애있던 애들과 워낙 친해서 다른애들에게 맘을줄 여유가 없었다는 걸수도 있었지만. 불안했다. 한국친구들과는 워낙 친했었기 때문에 내가 잊혀지리라는건 생각하기에도 두려웠다. 그래도 언젠가는 잊혀질 거라는게 내 생각이었다. 그때는 고모네 집에 컴퓨터가 없었다. 내 생일때 부모님께서 돈을 대주셔서 그때 겨우 산거였고 그전에 할수있는 방법이라곤 편지밖에 없었다. 뭐 전화도 할수 있었겠지만 워낙 비싸고 막상 한다고 해도 할말이 별로 없었기 때문에 서먹하기만 할뿐, 편지가 훨씬 나았다. 그때는 편지를 받으면 미친듯이 기뻐하고, 몇주가 지나도록 친구들의 편지가 없으면 극심히 불안해 했다. 드디어 끝난거라고, 난 더이상 걔네들이 편지쓰면서 낭비할 시간과 우표값을 투자할만한 애가 아니게 된거라고 생각했다. 다른 애들과 더 친해졌겠지. 나 없이도 다른애들과 같이 즐겁게 지내고 내생각 따위는 이제 하지도 않을꺼라는 생각이 날 괴롭혔다. 난 절대로 잊지 않을껀데, 다시 만나게 됬을때 서먹하게 나를 별로 신경쓰지 않는다는건 싫었다. 내가 생각해도 소심하지만, 알던사람이라곤 하나도 없는곳에서 혼자 적응해야했던 난 작은거에도 쉽게 흔들렸다. 생각해보니, 한국에서도 약간 혼자서 괜히 슬퍼하고 고민하고 난리치던 기질이 있었던거 같기도 하다 -_-; 어쨌든 메달릴곳은 그거밖에 없었다. 그만큼 힘이 되주었던 편지들이지만, 답장이 오지 않을때는 오히려 고문이었다. 그래도 주제에 있는건 자존심밖에 없는지라 절대로 답장이 안온다고 두번 편지 보내고 그러진 않았다. 오히려 뒤적여 보니까, 친구들은 자기가 편지를 보냈는데 내 답장이 한참이 지나도 안와서 다시 보낸다고 쓰여져 있던것도 있던데 -_-; 각성해야지;; 마음 같아서는 편지를 받자마자 그날로 답장써서 보내고 싶었지만, 그것도 그놈의 자존심때문에 일부러 일주일씩 기다렸다가 써서 보내고 그러기도 했다.

다시 편지를 보면서 여러가지를 느꼈다. 내게 편지로 연락하던 친구들은 하나같이 정이 많다. 정말로 많다. 말도없이 갑자기 떠나버린 나에게 편지로 욕을 하면서도 (한국에 돌아오면 가만 안두겠다는등 -_-;) 꼭 안부를 묻고, 잘 지내는지 걱정해줬다. 그걸 보면서 내가 한일이 정말 잘한일이었는지 생각도 많이했다. 난 도망친거라는 생각이 또 날 괴롭혔다. 한국의 교육과정이 싫어서 미국가면 좀 편해질줄 알고 그토록 소중히 생각했던 친구들을 버리고 혼자서 말도없이 가버렸다. 아니, 말없이 가버린건 친구들을 소중하게 여기지 않아서 그런게 아니였다. 뉴욕으로 간다는 말하고 무슨 송별회(??) 같은거라도 하기라도 하면, 정말 가는앤가보다 하고 맘놓고 날 잊어버릴까봐, 또 난 꼭 다시 돌아올거라는 생각에 그냥 모든거를 내가 한국에 있을때 그대로 처럼두고 가고 싶었다. 떠나던날 생각도 난다. 한개도 잊어버리지 않을라고 노력했다. 정말 하나도 잊어버리고 싶지 않아서 창문밖으로 열씸히 둘러봤다. 덕분에 아직 기억하는건 많지만 잊어버린것도 있는거 같다. 어쨌든, 말없이 도망간 나의 죄(?)로 난 이꼴이 되었다. 지금은 가고싶어도 가지 못한다. 이젠 가고싶다는 생각을 단념했기 때문에 오히려 덤덤하다. 지금은 어떨까? 아직도 연락하고 서로 보고싶다는 말도 하지만 (주로 “너 왜 안오니” “한번 올수는 없는거냐??”) 우리들 사이에는 시간이 많이 지났다. 벌써 여기온지 7년이다. 미국가서 1년안에 돌아올수 있다고 믿었는데, 7년동안 한번도 나가보지 못했다. 그시간동안 서로 다른친구들과 친해지고 바쁜 생활속에 항상 서로를 생각해주지 않는건 당연하다. 가끔가다 좋은 추억이라도 생각나서 내생각을 해준다면 고마운거다. 내생각과는 달리, 그애들은 날 잊어주지 않았다. 괴로움은 어쩌면 나혼자 만든게 아니었을까. 정말로 고맙다.

미나의 편지를 보고 또다른걸 느꼈다. 미나는 내가 뉴욕와서 거의 처음사귄 친구다. 대구에서 온애로 기억하는데 사투리를 재밌게 썼었다 ^^; 둘다 학교생활이건 영어건 전혀 안되서 의지를 많이 했었는데, 둘이 쪽지도 많이 주고 받았다. 그러나 그아이도 완전히 내가 받아들인 친구는 아니었다. 정말로 정말로 미안하지만, 비교했을 경우, 그쪽이 오히려 나를 더욱 절친한 친구로서 생각해 준거 같다. 그땐정말로 난 한국에 두고온 친구들생각에 푹 빠져있었기 때문에, 미나같은 아이와 친해져도 계속 그들과 비교하게 되는건 어쩔수 없었다. 그냥 같이 친하게 지낼 친구가 필요해서 일단 친구로 지냈을 뿐이라는 느낌도 들었다.오히려 금방 맘편한 친구를 만들어버리면 한국친구들을 배신 하는느낌까지 들었다. 써놓고 보니 남친/여친 둘이 오래 사귀다가 해어졌을때랑 뭔가 비슷한 상황 같지만 ^^;;;; 어쨌든 그만큼 내게 한국 친구들은 소중했던 거였다. 그래도 내가 미나를 그런식으로 대한거는 잘한게 아니다. 겉으로는 친한척 해도 마음이 따라가지 않으면 그건 가식이 되는거다. 미나는 분명 나를 속마음을 털어놀만큼 친한 친구로 생각했을텐데, 내쪽에서는 정작 중요한건 하나도 알려주지 않았다. 쪽지에 보니, “우리 평생 소중한 친구로 지내자” 라고 써져있던데, 지금은 미나가 어디서 뭘하고 있는지조차 모르겠다. 나로써는 지금까지 미나생각은 한두번 하지도 않았다. 난 정말 못되먹었다.

사람을 정말로 좋아하게 되면, 마음을 줘버리면 이렇게 고생하게 된다는걸 배웠다. 내가 누구든 쉽게 사귀지 못하는것도, 막상 친하게 지내도 한국에 있는 그애들처럼 마음을 줘버리지 못한다는건 뉴욕에 있을때의 기억을 아직도 지우지 못하는것 때문일까? 이제는 정착할때다 라고 내게 말해봐도, 난 하지 못한다. 한국을 떠나지 않았으면 어떻게 됬을까. 난 조금 다른사람이 되었을까? 적어도 이런생각은 하지 않겠지? 미국에 온것을 특별히 후회하지는 않지만, 내가 뉴욕에서 얼만큼 힘들었는지 미리 알수 있었다면, 난 죽어도 오지 않았을꺼다.

편지를 다시 보내고 싶다. 이메일은 너무 간단하고 쉽다. 편지처럼 받았을때의 기쁨과 두근거림은 이메일은 가지고 있지 않다. 방학이니까 친구들에게 하나씩 편지를 보내야겠다. 그런데 이 악필은 도저히 어떻게 할수없고… 고민되네-_- 분명히 유치원생 글씨라고 그럴텐데.. 에효 =_=

(어쨌던지 독일에 사는 예진씨, 이거 보면 주소좀 알려주길 바랍니다. (yup, I read urs too.. hehe) Surprise가 갈지도 모르니까… 그러나 기대는 금물!)

Cleared

2006-07-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

I've finally decided to withdraw from the damn physics class that was stressing me out till the point where I felt like my head would explode. Man. It was the first lesson that I learned in college, and I had to re-learn it again. Like the nice counsellor/secretary at the advisor's office said: "If you don't like the teacher, drop it that day!!" I should've dropped it when I had the chance to. I didn't even look at when the deadline of drop day was. I should've notice it when half of the class dropped out in three days and switched into the other professor's class. Damn it. But it's no use thinking about what happened in past, because it cannot be changed. Better to just get up and look forward. Anyways, the reason for my withdrawal is that... basically I can't stand the class. I just can't stand the instructor, and I don't think I can even get a B in that class bcuz I have no idea what's going to be on the test. All he does is just show demonstrations and asking tricky conceptual questions. Every single student I've talked to who had him immediately changes their face expression to something like "oh I hated that person, I'm so sorry you have him now". No wonder there are less than 15 people on my class and 99 people on the other class. I wish I can somehow get into that other class like many other clever people did last week, but too late. So these were the options: I can do nothing but study physics all day for five weeks and get a B or possibly C in this class, or withdraw and take it later when I have time and get an easy A. The advisor in pharmacy school said that they don't mind W at all on the transcript, but they are going to look at every single grade I got from every class. And I can take the class after I apply, so timing works out as well. So it's obviously a better option to have W now and get A later. I'll instead spend time on studying for PCAT more and spend time with friends, family, and reading books and stuff. That's tons better than what I would have to go through if I stick to that class. It finally feels like 20 pounds of stone got removed from my head. Haaaaah. I'm exhausted, but feeling better now. Now I want to celebrate my freedom from the evil class. Call me people! I have time now!

세상사 새옹지마

2006-07-18T17:38:00.000-07:00

옛날 중국 북방의 요새(要塞) 근처에 점을 잘 치는 한 노옹(老翁)이 살고 있었는데 어느 날, 이 노옹의 말[馬]이 오랑캐 땅으로 달아났다. 마을 사람들이 이를 위로하자 노옹은 조금도 애석한 기색 없이 태연하게 말했다. "누가 아오? 이 일이 복이 될는지." 몇 달이 지난 어느 날, 그 말이 오랑캐의 준마(駿馬)를 데리고 돌아왔다. 마을 사람들이 이를 치하하자 노옹은 조금도 기쁜 기색 없이 태연하게 말했다. "누가 아오? 이 일이 화가 될는지." 그런데 어느 날, 말타기를 좋아하는 노옹의 아들이 그 오랑캐의 준마를 타다가 떨어져 다리가 부러졌다. 마을 사람들이 이를 위로하자 노옹은 조금도 슬픈 기색 없이 태연하게 말했다. "누가 아오? 이 일이 복이 될는지." 그로부터 1년이 지난 어느 날, 오랑캐가 대거 침입해 오자 마을 장정들은 이를 맞아 싸우다가 모두 전사(戰死)했다. 그러나 노옹의 아들만은 절름발이었기 때문에 무사했다고 한다.

Long time ago, an old man who was good at fortune telling lived in place called Yose, north of China. One day, his horse ran off to a foreign land. The towns people tried to comfort him, only to find that the old man didn't show any signs of sadness. "Who knows? This might become a good luck", he said. Few month later, the horse came back, and brought with him an excellent horse from the foreign land. The towns people congratulated him, but the old man did not seem happy. "Who knows? This might become a bad luck", he said. Then one day, his son who loved to ride horses fell off from the foreign horse, and broke his legs. When the towns people comforted him, he just said calmly, "Who knows? This might become a good luck". One year later when foreign worriors attaked the village, all the young sons of the towns people got killed while fighting against the enemy. But the old man's son lived; he could not be in battle because of his defective legs.

Above is the story about origin of 새옹지마(Se-ong-ji-ma), a korean (chinese??) saying that means "life's good and bad times are changing constantly, so it is impossible to understand it". A korean/english dictionary simply called it "the irony of fate". It's suppose to be a lesson that teaches people not to be overly happy/sad about a situation, because nobody really knows what it'll bring. Laugh it off might be another way of saying it. The reason I brought this up is because I'm not very happy these days; things just seem to go in a wrong direction only. Nothing really works out nicely anymore. Frankly, I can't wait till this month is over. I decided to withdraw from my physics class because the teacher's crap, and I can't stand the class. If I think I can pull out at least a B, I'll definitely try despite hating the teacher, but it seems unlikely. At this rate, I'll be lucky if I can get a C. And I know I can get an A if I just switch the teacher. Well, too late now. The only solution is withdrawing, and I don't even know the instructor will even let me do that nicely. I'll have to try though. I won't take no for an answer. This whole thing frustrates me, because if I had known I could switch classes before the deadline, then I would not have this problem, like 20 or so other kids did. And if I can't take it during summer, that means I'll have to take it during semester, which complicates matters into a new unimaginable level. F. Withdrawing will leave W on my transcript, but it's tons better than a D. Things are just going bad, bad, bad for me, and I'm frustrated out. Should I say "who knows? this might bring me a good luck instead" and laugh over it?? Or just think things aren't working out, there's nothing I can do, and forget about it? I hate it when things do not go as I planned, especially when the planning took great deal of energy out of me. It's not my style to worry over and over about things that I can't do anything about, but I'm finding it hard to keep this out of my mind. This is one of the times when I think "I wish I can somehow turn the time around and go back to past, and fix everything for good". But it still is better to just forget about it now untill I can meet up with the advisor and figure things out, right?

I read about the old man's story when I was little. Back then I thought the old man was very wise, as the story made him look like. He's in control of his emotions; he does not show happiness, sadness, or anger. Now I think it different. I think he's inhumane. People who aren't sad when sad things happen, and doesn't feel happy when joyful things happen are not considered human to me. What's the point of living this world, if you can't feel either of these? You might as well be a piece of wooden block. It's part of living, and human can only be a human. And right now, I'm more human than I want myself to be.

Snowball

2006-07-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

Today I had my first physics summer class... I thought I was in wrong class bcuz I came in late and the instructor had written "Natural Philosophy" on the board, so I asked a girl next to me and she said it was phys 122 LOL. The first impression of my summer class was... not very good. Well, first of all, summer classes are extremely boring. It's like a torture. I had expected it to be, and made myself to endure. That's all right. What's not all right is the teacher. He actually comes trying to teach something. I mean really teach something. And yes, he actually was prepared, reciting quotes from famous dead physicists and stuff. And worst of all, he doesn't seem to like the idea of having things easy, and wants people to talk and answer back. Wait till you see him staring back for two minutes just waiting for someone to speak. Like I'm going to raise my hand if he does that. For the whole 3 hrs 20min, we didn't have any break but worked on reviews and stuff. Arg. I really really sincerly hoped and prayed(<-- not really) it would be an easy and extremely boring don't-have-to-pay-attention, no hard work class, but my wish has been denied. I think I actually have to work in that class. Ugh. Who does that for summer?? But then when I think about it, I've never really had an easy summer class... hmm. And the second thing I don't really like is that I don't really like the girl I've been paired up with. She's probably a smart girl, which is good for me, but she has the artist's weirdness.... It's hard to describe, but people who have seen weirdly dorky artistic person (artistic meaning likes to draw in their notebook almost constanly, and some of them are really good), would know what I'm saying. People who look like they have created their own little world, and are living in it. She's a science major like me, but decided to go to art school when she's done with her bachelor's degree. And her name. (which I'll not mention.) I had not so pleasant experience with a girl who had the same name and even had similar characteristics with my current partner(man, she liked to draw too... but bad bad drawings) when I was in Junior High, and I'm a little reluctant to be too close with her. But I shouldn't judge people from their looks, and I should be more open-minded. Bad, ujean, bad. It's only for the summer though, right? It won't be so bad... even though it is excruciatingly boring.

Another thing I found out today. The hospital that I volunteer at will not let me park at their parking lot starting September, because too many university volunteer students use the hospital parking garage to park and go to their class while pretending too be volunteering. God #$^%&%* those stupid people. And because of those people, the university student volunteers can't park at the hospital??? Are you out of your mind? What about people who do not violate those things, like me? I have the university parking spot, and I don't need the hospital parking area to go to school, it's just way too far! I admit that the parking permit fees are freakishly high at the university; I have to pay $460 for one academic year. The cheapest I can get without having to walk 5 miles from my classes is $200 and something. (I want motorcycle--don't they pay only $60 or something?.) And I'm not gonna walk 40 minutes in blazing heat just to volunteer for 4 hrs and then walk back another 40 min to my car. It's ridiculous. What do they want me to do, quit volunteering? I mean, shouldn't they want people to volunteer? I think they should do something rather than just kick out student volunteers from parking lot, like issuing a permit to those who have university parking permits. If they won't let me park at their garage, I'm pretty much done with volunteering. It's another little thing that's pissing me off; first the camera, next the defective new camera, and now the stupid parking. I wonder what else is out their trying to annoy the heck out of me. Is my life just getting better and better or what??

sore

2006-07-09T21:23:00.000-07:00

어우 요즘 왜이렇게 되는일이 없냐 -_-++카메라 도둑맞고, 새로 주문했더니만 5분안에 고장나고 (아예 켜지지가 않음.....!#$^*$%!@$%%.) 다시 return해야 하게 생겼네 쓰벌=_=. 엄마가 가계에다 가져다논 내 운동화도 어디갔는지 사라지고 없다. 그것도 새로 사야하나 -_-+++ 거기다가 왜 이탈리는 월드컵에서 이기고 난리야. 괜히 더 승질만 나네. 차라리 져버렸음 은근히 좋아했을텐데-_- 저번에 하이몬티가 이탈리 결승전에간다고 그렇게 좋아하던데 이번엔 또 이겨버렸으니 얼마나 난리일지, 안봐도 뻔하다. 어우 저번주 생각하면 정말 화만난다. 친구가 기분나빠하고 있는데 옆에서 좀 미안한척이라도 하면 덧나나? 걔는 정말 왜그렇게 혼자 난리냐?? 자기나라는 월드컵에 나오지도 못했으면서. 자기나라가 월드컵에 나간다고 그래도 분명히 이탈리응원할꺼다 아마. 무슨 이탈리아가 자기 나라도 아니면서 무조건 상대팀은 약잡아보고 상대팀 응원하는애들은 완젼 싫어하고. 거기다 저번에 누구? 독일이랑 했었다 그랬나? 이탈리아가 이기니까 그 상대팀 응원하는애 내일 만나서 놀려줘야겠다고 그러는데 애가 왜이렇게 유치하게 구는지-_-+ 뭣때문에 이탈리를 응원하냐고 물어봤더니 잘하는 선수들이 많아서 그렇다고 그러던데, 그럼 잘하는선수가 없어지면 바로 다른팀 응원할껀가? 응원이란건 잘해서 이길수있는팀을 골라서 하는게 아니라 뭔가 개인적인 프라이드같은데서 나와야하는거 아냐? 너무 그러니까 그냥 콱 떨어져버렸음 속이 시원하겠다라는 생각까지 들었는데... 이걸 내가 꾹 참고 친구로서 축하를 해줘야 하나 말아야 하나... 뭐 내가 축하해주던지 말던지 이미 혼자서 좋아 죽을테니까 별 큰 차이는 없겠지만. 내가 속이 좁은건지 애같이 구는건진 모르겠지만 맘에 안드는건 맘에 안드는거다. 이탈리 이긴거, 하이몬티때문이라도 맘에 안든다. 그래 나 속좁다 인간아 -_-+

썩을 -_-

2006-07-05T18:37:00.000-07:00

젠장 친구 아이스크림케익 사다준다고 콜드스톤 들어갔다가 내 디카 도둑맞았다. ...mailto:...!!#@$%$@^....어우 열받아-_-+ 누군지 모르지만 훔쳐간놈 제발 오래오래 고통스러운 삶을 살기를. 누가 자기껄 훔쳐가봤어야 알지 -_-++ 링크도 없는걸 가져가서 어쩌겠다고 미친넘=_= 젠장 거금주고 하나 더 사야지... 아아 열받아; 내돈... 요즘 과외하던애들 다 한국으로 돌아가서 돈도 못벌고있는데... 하이몬티는 위로는 못해줄망정 무슨 긍정적인 생각을 하라면서 지 디카로 자기좀 찍어달라 너도좀 찍자... 아니 내 300불짜리 캠이 없어져가지고 이러고있는 차에 내옆에서 웃으면서 사진찍을 생각이 나냐? 뭐? 분명 돌려받을수 있을꺼라고?? 장난하냐 지금? 돌려줄라면 처음부터 왜 훔쳐가 훔쳐가길!! -_-+ 아우 진짜 분위기 파악 못하는데 미치겠다. 무슨 이탈리가 월드컵에서 준결승전 나간다고 좋은 운이 따를거라고 그러는데 내가 그거랑 뭔상관이냐고; 자기는 사람들은 본래 다 착하니까 돌려받을꺼라고 그러는데, 얘가 뭘 몰라도 한참 모르지, 이걸 낙천적인거라고 생각해야 하나 아님 눈치가 없는거라고 봐야하나. 우리가게에서 화장실에있는 전구까지 훔쳐가는게 걔가말하는 그 "사람들"인데, 계념없는 사람이 한둘이 아니다. 아우 진짜 그거 엄마가 대학입학선물겸 사준건데... 차라리 애니는 그냥 없어져서 미안하다고 자기도 어떤기분인지 안다고 그러고 말던데, 그게 하이몬티가 옆에서 난리치는것보다 100배는 났다. 근데 얘는 진짜 왜이렇게 눈치가 없냐??? 한국팀도 무조건 지난번 월드컵때 이탈리를 이겨서 싫다고 그러고. 뭐 이탈리를 이겼던 팀들은 일단 다 싫다고 했지만... 이나라도 이탈리를 몇년도에 이겨서 싫고 저나라도 옜날에 이겼기때문에 싫고... 자기는 무슨 이탈리아사람도 아닌주제에... 그럼 뭐 이탈리아한테 져준팀들은 좋냐?? 이탈리 결승전 간다고 좋아하는건 좋은데 내가 옆에서 카메라 도둑맞은거 때문에 기분나빠 하고있을때 그렇게 혼자서 좋아하고 있음 내가 어떻겠냐고-_-. 은근히 이기주위적이라니까. 처음엔 그런앤줄 잘 몰랐는데 가면 갈수록... 솔직히 어제 걔캠으로 찍은 사진들 다 지워져버렸음 좋겠다. 어우 뚜껑열린다 -_- 나쁜애는 아닌데말야. 제발 눈치좀 키워라 눈치좀.

어우 엄마는 언제온담-_-+ 집안이 완전.. 먹을것도 없고 에효 ㅠ_ㅠ 이게 이번년도의 bad luck 인가... 그래도 애니한테 red flower를 받았으니까 뭔가 부적삼아... 아아 짜증나아 ㅠ_ㅠ

시월애, Il Mare, or The Lake House

2006-07-02T16:19:00.000-07:00

Today I decided to watch 시월애, a Korean movie known as Il Mare here. I had the video in my house for at least 4 years now, and never saw it until just now because before the cover didn't look very intersting to me, and I wasn't that interested in Korean movies. Anyways, after reading my friend's review of the movie on her Cyworld (like a myspace for Koreans??), I decided to watch it afterall... I have the video tape, and I got time, right?
Thirty minutes into the movie... and I literally sat up and yelled "This is the Lake House!!!" Yes, that was the Korean movie "The Lake House" was based on (or more like they remade it into American version). My other friend who loooves Korean movies (she's non-korean but knows more korean movies than I do) told me that there is original Korean Lake house, and back then I didn't even know what the movie The Lake House was about or the name of the Korean movie. What a coincidance that I just decided to watch it, and it turned out to be the movie we talked about.
I liked the movie, and wanted to see how the 2006 American version of the movie turned out. Well, the Rotten tomatoes thought it was a crappy movie, ranging around 35% or something. (Yahoo had slightly better reviews but... same all, same all). I visited their official site, and they did admit that it was a remake of the Korean movie that the producer saw when attending Pusan International film festival. He thought it had the universal massage that needed to be shown to the world, and Voila! The Lake House was created, with Keanu Reeves and Sandar Bullock as the main characters. I saw the preview... and I understood why they recieved so many bad reviews. First of all, Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, or Kate and Alex (oh my god how American is that... but then the new movie's set in Chicago, not Korea. I guess any name would sound American... but did it really have to be Kate and Alex???), didn't really convinced me as the character I saw in the Korean movie. Alex seemed too spunky(??), and Kate looked too sassy, unlike the confused and hurt two people I saw in Il Mare. And they speak out everything that seems to creep up in their head and snicker, while in Korean version they choose not to say much on things they were thinking, but instead showed it by their gesture or facial expression. I didn't like how Sandra Bullock portraited the girl character either-- too Sandra Bullock-ish--, and I can't say much for Keanu Reeves bcuz the trailer didn't show him talking that much. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the American version is.... too out there, like shouting out to the world instead of whispering to someone quietly. It loses sort of the calm quality of the movie. If anybody's thinking of seeing the movie, I'd recommend Il Mare, the original Korean version, over The Lake House. The synopsis did look almost exactly the same though, except few changes to make it more American. (And the dog.... please stop...)

As for my review of the movie, it was very nice heartwarming and nice movie. The movie was well arranged; the plot didn't have any holes left out, and some of the scenes they shot were absolutely beautiful. I would recommend it to people who are interested in good foreign movies. There was one thing I wasn't sure about though... at the end...

**SPOILER WARNING: Do NOT read further if planning on watching either the Lake House or Il Mare!!!**

Ok. So I didn't really like how the end turned out. I never really understood how the time travel thing is supposed to work but... I understood that sunwoo (I think that was his name) died in a car accident trying to help the girl to get together with her lover. (I dearly wish Koreans would leave out Car accident as the key cause of either death or memory loss in Dramas and movies now, because it's getting very, very old). She realizes it at the end, and desperately sends the last letter to prevent his death, even though at the time of her sending the letter, it was said that Sunwoo is already dead. And suddenly there goes the time warp... time goes backward, and the letter prevents him from dying. Assuming that the time goes parallel with exactly two years of interval, and given that she sends the letter just in time so that Sunwoo reads it and do not go to the Cafe, I guess things make sense. Ok. What I don't understand is how he can have the letter in his hand and come to meet the girl just moving out, because that would stop the whole sequence of mailing each other including the moment she finds out that he dies and writes to him, making it impossible for him to have the letter in his hand in the first place. Ok. So let's say he reads the letter and lives, waits for two years to see her. Future is the product of past, and by changing the past the future changes. Bingo! That was my point!!! She changed the past from the future, and everything from the moment he sees the her last letter has to change. Meaning, he should be able to meet her at Jeju Island because he's alive, and that's when they decide to meet each other for the first time. So it doesn't make sense that Sunwoo talks to the girl as she's just moving out of the house, because that would stop everything from happening after that. And if he lives, she wouldn't even get to the point where she finds out that he dies, because he won't die this time(???). So it's like he dies(past), she finds out(Future), sends a letter to him (still future), he doesn't die(past)... and lives(past to present/future), which creates new future where the girl doesn't have to write the letter, but then he already has the letter from the future meaning it had already happened. Is time doing some kind of triple flip here?? I wonder if the Korean producers watched "Back to the Future"; like the Doc says, you can't mass with the past without risking affecting the future! I think I'm right, right? Like in "the Back to the Future" film, the last letter he recieves should disappear from his hand after the time when he is supposed to die. Ahhhh I predict mass confusion of the world if time travel will ever take place...

2006-06-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

Heifetz plays Paganini Caprice No.24

Another giant of the great Violinists-- Heifetz, famous for his posture. The sound and video doesn't match exactly, but still an amazinig playing. I heard one of the violinists at my school play this during masterclass, a very very good violinist, but even he struggled through the piece. The left hand pizz at 3:50 is just amazing,among with harmonics(!!!) and double stops... Man, how does he play this so easily??? No wonder Paganini was called the devil, I only wish I could somehow see him playing it himself.

2006-06-30T12:21:00.000-07:00

Nathan Milstein - Caprice 5

Simply amazing. People who didn't learn violin will have no idea how hard it is to play to this perfection. More so because he plays it so easily. It makes me to have a good reason to strive for perfection, because it is possible. I used to be obsessed with having to play everything right, but my teachers have done a good job conditioning me stop caring so much for those but focus on expressing more. It became more and more so as the pieces I learn started to get more technically difficult, but now I guess I haven't really achieved either the perfection or the expressivness... I wonder how much he practiced for this... hmm

Summer Creation #1.

2006-06-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

It's been 4 days since mom left for Korea and now there's almost nothing to eat. Eh, there was pretty much nothing to eat even when mom was around, but still. So I decided today to make something, and here it is! It's called 낙지복음, and for those who do not know what 낙지, or Nak-ji, is, it's like a small baby octopus. I know some people do not touch things like squids or octopus, but they are good, and a lot of Koreans like them. I don't really understand why some people won't eat those, since I've been eating all kinds of sea creatures (including sea cucumber and sea urchins and etc.) growing up. I even know a person who won't eat fish either. Wait, I know two people. Hmm.... actually one eats salmon only. Anyways, the dish was very easy to make, and it was tasty... except it was a little too spicy. I have no idea how to not make it not so spicy because as you can see, the main ingredient is pepper paste and pepper powder; it's bound to be hot. Hmmmm. Well, my sister and dad liked it, so I think all is good. I'll be making more "summer creations" as time goes, and I hope more things turn out to be a success rather than a failure.

I've also started to practice again :) It felt weird playing again when I haven't been practicing for almost two weeks (Shh... don't tell!), but I got used to soon. I can't helpt but think I sound somehow different in a weird way, but I guess I sound like what I always sounded like. Right now I'm attacking on Zigeunerweisen (<-- I had to seach for the correct spelling; why can't people name things simpler????), again realizing how freakish technically demanding it is. But I think I'm learning it more quickly, may be because I've already learned it before... not that I could really play it back then. I wanted work on some difficult things, so it suits me :p Tomorrow there will be more cooking, more reading, and more practicing as well, in addition to tutoring. Ahh relaxing times... relaxting times...

So how did the PCAT go?

2006-06-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

Couple people asked me how the PCAT went last saturday... Well, the first half-- Verbal ability, biology, and Reading comprehension-- was pretty much what I expected, or as for biology, it was better than what I expected. The second half-- quantitative analysis, chemistry, and writing-- was uh, I guess bit harder than I expected it to be. I can't believe I forgot all Sin, Cos, Tan graph stuffs I learned in Algebra 2/precalc, and ended up just guessing all the questions related to it... My review book didn't even had those things in it. Arg. For chemistry, it had quite a lot of Ochem stuffs, and even though I probably could solve them if I had enough time, I immediately guessed on almost every one of them just to save the time. I mean, Ochem stuff aren't like biology where you either know the answer or don't know it; it requires thinking. And if I only have like 30 seconds for each problem in order to get through it all, I'm not gonna spend 5 minutes on those questions. For writing I panicked a little because I couldn't think of examples to back up my statement, but I think I did all right. I think. .....I hope.

The one thing I've noticed when I walked toward the testin center was groups of people just standing around waiting for the test to start. I think there was at least 60 people there, and it suddenly made me realize the large number of people I'm competeing against. I should've expected it, but I was a little startled. It also made me bit worried about my chance of getting accepted into the college... If I do fairly OK on the PCAT, meaning I get at 85 or above, I think I have good chance, and if some miracle happens and I get something like 90, I will have pretty good chance of getting in. Well, I still have one more shot at it. Hopefully next time I'll be able to do a lot better; I'm gonna bringing a coat, hat, and gloves so I don't get freezed like last time.

National Pride

2006-06-22T22:42:00.000-07:00

Looking at how some people go crazy over World cup, the question of national pride came up to my mind. Every country wants their country to do well, and it’s normal that they show enormous support for their teams. (In countries like US where soccer isn’t exactly the favorite sport of the people, people might support other country’s teams rather then their own team, like some of my friends. That’s cool too. I actually feel sorta bad about US soccer team… people here just don’t seem to care that much. I’m sure there are people who are as frantic as Koreans about world cup somewhere, but I haven’t seen one yet.) But when it comes down to Koreans? There’s only one thing: you support them, cheer them, make songs and parody movies out of the heroic players. You stay up till 3~4 O’clock in the morning, gather up in front of some outdoor giant screen with thousands of other people wearing red shirts, and cheer for your team from the minute the national anthem starts till the players go to sleep in their rooms. If you are lucky and rich enough to travel to Germany so you can cheer your country’s team, then you’ll be able to be a part of redness that literally covers the whole stadium. I actually got to hear one of the American commenters say “What an amazing national pride” to the cheering Red Devils. Seriously, whenever I watch one of those matches, all I can here is “Deh---han min gook!” or “Ah ri rang” song. (도대체 아리랑은 왜부르는 거냐-_- 특히 “나를 버리고 가시는 님은 십리도 못가서 발병난다” 라는 부분이 들릴때면 쪼금…-_-;; ) I think it’s bit excessive, that Koreans are hoping for another “miracle” to happen. It’s not just World Cup too, even though it’s what makes Korean people go crazy over the most. They get pretty excited to say the least during Olympics as well. Oh, and if anything happens so that there would be a game between Korea and Japan, they become scary and vicious. It’s the people of Korea, not the team, that’s winning or loosing. A great deal of pride is at stake, along with excessive emotions. I see this among younger people especially; they think Korean people are the best, Koreans can achieve anything, and they are not afraid to show unmoving allegiance to Korea. (But then people always complain about what a crappy government and education system they have... isn’t that contrasting?) I never really understood how US don’t require kids to sing their national anthem or say the pledge of allegiance in school if they didn’t want to for some reason; in Korea, that’s almost unthinkable. Starting preschool they memorize national anthem and the pledge of allegiance. I think I had to memorize verses 2,3 and 4 as well, but I massed up on it during oral test and got scolded for it… Anyways, if someone doesn’t know it or refuses to sing it, people will look that person like he/she’s the worst person they’ve ever encountered. Or they might charge the person as a spy from North Korea… although if I were a spy from North Korea, I’d really memorize those well not to be discovered. And this is also why Steve Yoo, a former Korean singer, is not able to come back to Korea to make some more money out of his superstar statues. You see, Korean men are required to go through mandatory enlistment in Army for about 2 and half years. Most of guys hate it and will do almost anything to avoid it, including breaking their own legs or simply being out of country and not coming back. A lot of superstars in Korea avoided going through it by… I guess paying a lot of money to the government official??, and it really sparked controversy. And then this Steve dude comes on a talk show, and said something like “Every REAL Korean man should proudly enlist in Army. I am a proud real Korean man and I’ll gladly go through the 3 year program no matter what”, but changed his citizenship to US the following week or something. Man, he’s like the worst traitor people can talk of now, nobody calls him his Korean name anymore. Instead, they mockingly call him “Steve”. I thought it was bit sad… I thought he was cute. LOL One bad talking ruins his whole life, although I bet he made enough money to get by. Shoulda watch out what to say in public now.

So what makes Koreans so national-pride-obsessive? I might be careful saying this, but I think Koreans learned this obsessive royalty to Korea during Japanese occupation. The history of Korea isn’t very smooth and peaceful, and after being attacked and separated and falling to the bottom, the only thing they could hold onto was probably their national identity. Confucianism also talks good deal about having to be loyal to your family and country as well. And Japanese are notorious for their unifying loyalty toward their country; talk about Samurais and WWII. I’m sure during Japanese occupation of Korea, Korean kids had to learn a lot about having to be loyal to their country (which was unfortunately toward Japan at that time). And now I’m looking at it, today’s school systems in Korea are much affected by Japanese. They are just very similar, and both countries have great pride in their nationality. Very unified population too. People of both countries will take things personally what happens to their country, as if it happened to them or their family. If some Korean got killed by a foreigner, it’s almost as if it’s someone they know personally got killed by that person. If the country is attacked or the country’s image is ridiculed in some ways, it’s your family that’s being attacked and ridiculed. I’m talking about a level that almost every single Koreans feel that way. Thing can get pretty heated up quickly. Anyways, it’s just interesting to me that how sports like soccer can bring out national pride so much… it’s almost like having a war between two countries. Winner wins all glory.

Koreans are having another game with Swiss tomorrow, and the TV will once again be filled with the sound of Red Devils cheering… I honestly don’t think Koreans have that much chance against Swiss, but being Korean, I must support them… I won’t be one if I didn’t cheer for them, right? And I’d love to see Korean team moving up too.
Oh and best of lucks for me as well; PCAT’s this Saturday. As of now, I just want to get it over with. ARG. I should actually be studying rather than doing this. Sigh…

Record

2006-06-14T20:58:00.001-07:00

Today, I met up with some friends and talked for almost 5 and half hrs.... A record for me, because literally all we did was just sit down and talk. Didn't watch movies, go shopping or anything, but just talk. Man, am I tired. And about 90% of the topics was about relationships... (and why does every one of them have to be so complicated???) For both of my friends I haven't seen them for a loooong time, so we sort of exchanged infos about what we've been doing the whole time... and whenever they asked me "what about you? Anything new?", I really felt like there hasn't been much to talk about. I always get stuck whenever people ask me things like "so what's up? what's new?", because really, there hasn't been anything much "new" in my life. I almost always ends up saying "ummm.. nothing really exciting... the same old stuff, you know", and I know how BORING that is. But that's the truth; I haven't been doing anything much except studying after the semester ended, and there aren't much I can talk about that would interest other people. During the semester I've been busy doing my own stuffs as well. Every week sensee would ask me the same question, (and now since I'm volunteering, one of the pharmacist almost always ask for any exciting things I did over the weekend...and I don't have anything to say...), and I would just sort of think about it a while (yeah, what have I been doing?) but I can't think of anything else to say, so I'd just say "nothing much." Only when I started to tutor kids and ask them what's new I understood how boring the answer "nothing much" can be... I should start thinking about what I would tell people next time they ask me those stuff, so at least I can sound like I do more than just eat and sleep all day. I'll be ready to carry on a conversation... instead of just listening and saying "uh-huh" all the time. My heads are full of useless information relating to PCAT, that I can't seem to remember what I've been doing until now, and I think that was probably why I couldn't think of anything to say because I've been not paying attention to anything else much. I should learn to talk better....

Woohoo!

2006-06-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

Woke up at 5:45 to watch the world cup match between Korea and Togo; I remember dreaming that I woke up 2hrs later than the game so I missed it all, but when I woke up the game was just starting... yay! It wasn't the most exciting soccer game I've seen, but we won, so all is good :) I kind of felt that the players weren't on top of the game, and man, the Togo players were vicious... Korean players almost flew down on the ground whenever Togo players body slammed them; I wonder if it would be the same for other macho European players as well. Hmm.
I also searched online for player named Lee, Chun-soo, who scored a goal in today's match. A lot of people don't seem to like him very well. He's very cocky, full of himself, and doesn't listen to his senior players (which is a BIG thing in Korean culture; you are pretty much to do as you are told), showing objections whenever he can. Today he deicided to do the freekick even though his senior player was suppossed to do it, and the last time they didn't let him, he swore. And I also read that during the last World Cup, he broke the curfew to go out partying, and got rebuked by the captain... not much of a dedication. But I think it's working out for him because the commenters during the game only talked about two players from Korean team; Lee, Chun-soo and Ahn, Jung-hwan, both famous for playing only for themselves, but certainly getting attentions. Quite a few Korean people think that 2006 players aren't really thinking as a team, but trying to show off as much as they can so they can be noticed by other European groups and get scouted. It's true that there are a lot of new young players on the team, since many veteran players retired last world cup... As for drama, I think last world cup was waaaay better. We'll see how far they can go this time, 홧팅!

What to wear... or what Not to wear.

2006-06-09T21:20:00.000-07:00

I just watched a reality TV show "What not to wear", a show about tracking people down who dresses horribly, persuade them to come to NY (I think it was NY, if not, it doesn't really matter), throw away all their clothes in home while telling them what horrible clothes they have, lecture them on how to dress properly, give them $5000 or something on visa card, and then let them shop plus make over with new hairstyle and makeups. It's pretty entertaining show, especially when you get to see the before & after look of the picked person, and how their friends and family reacts to the "new & changed" look. Some of the people on the show, like a teacher who makes her own cloth & insists her cloth to be made out of organic matrials, are really in dire need of some help, looking more like out of time and space. Those are the ones who change most remarkably; even if they don't look like super stars, at least they look normal and attractive now. But most others aren't so bad, and for few of them I didn't think that they really needed to change how they dress. And in some cases, even after those two fashion gurus dressed the person as they liked, he/she doesn't look that good.

I don't have problem with people trying to look good; it's great that a person can feel a little more confidant about themselves by wearing fashionable cloth and changing their hairstyle. But something striked me when I was watching the show... Can a few sets of clothes and new hairstyle really give somebody more happiness and confidance? The people on the show always ends by saying "I love this look, I feel so much happier and confidant now. Thank you!!" It's almost like a streotypical consumerism; people buy happiness and satisfaction through spending tons of money on things like clothes, shoes, bags, cars. Is this show promoting consumerism by brainwashing people to think that they need to dress absolutely perfect in order to live a good (or better) life? Can it really change someone's life, make them happier then before? The people on the show seemed to enjoy themselves after they've changed, but is it real feeling or are they now just more aware of how good/bad they look? I really wonder if the people who went through that show now spend a lot more money just shopping around and changing their clothes. Happiness and confidance is good, but I don't like the idea of having to buy stuff to gain those. My math professor is one of the worst dressed people I've seen in my life (he only wears T-shirts and shorts, and most of the T-shirts he wears are the ones people give out on the streets when some event happens), but I know he wouldn't go to NY to change the way he dresses even if they give him a million dollars. Ok, may be he will go with "million dollars", but my point is, he's perfectly happy with who he is, what he does, and how he looks, even though it's not the best look that he can have. (He is a really interesting person... Math professors and music & art professors are the most peculiar people ever. Oh, and the science professors are the worst spellers.) Would somebody really need to change even if the person feels good about themselves? But then there's the question of wheather a person feels happy with her/himself, and how others feel about the way the person dresses. Who should decide, the person or the public opinion? I mean, given that the person does not dress in really offending manner...

I don't like the idea that everyone has to try to dress like super stars, but I also don't like people dressing way weird, as if they don't care what anybody thinks about them. I'm sure most people care about what others think about themselves, and I think trying to look attractive is a natural thing. I feel more attracted to a person who dresses nicely than a person who just doesn't care about what they put on, but I don't determine what the person is like by the way he/she dresses. Cloth gives out such an impression to others, it's hard to just not care about what to wear. I guess the only reason people are interested in clothes is how others view them with the clothes they wear.... which reminds me that I need to go shoping. I only have 2 jeans now because my mom accidently threw away my new jean I bought few weeks ago. But I feel like I shouldn't do anything but study untill PCAT's over with.... sigh.

운

2006-06-08T20:15:00.000-07:00

처음 Baron's PCAT preperation 3rd edition을 보고 스트레스가 팍팍 싸인후 일단 Kaplan에서 나온 책을 사기로 마음을 먹은후 책방을 3군데나 다녀봤지만 책을 찾지 못했다. 아무래도 피캣이 3주 안으로 다가오니까 다 팔린듯 -_-+. 인간들이 평소에 사둘것이지... (<-자기는-_-;;) Baron's꺼는 책방에 넘쳐났지만 일단 집에 2nd edition이 있으므로 그냥 무조건 Kaplan꺼로 사기로 마음을 먹고 드디어 Barne's&nobles에서 찾았는데... 45불이나 하는건 또 뭐람=_=. 심각한 고민끝에 다음번에 공부할때도 사야 하니까 결국 사기로 정하고 계산을 하는데... 직원이 말하기를 "It'll be $16.96." ....??? 덜컥! 자...잘못 찍혔나? 아까 분명히 45불 이라고 봤는데.. 하면서도 말안하고 꾿꾿히 그냥 $16.96 내고 나와서 확인해 보니 역시... 잘못 찍힌것이였다. 음... 흠... 흠.... 큼... (우히히힛;) 거의 훔치다시피(??) 한 가격에 비싼책을 사버렸다. 양심의 가책이 조금 느껴지기는 하지만... 좋은건 어쩔수 없지 훗~. 엄마랑 언니는 굿럭이라고 붙을꺼라고 하는데... 영수증 버리지 말고 가지고 있어야지. 움하하하핫; (제발 붙어라 붙어라 붙어라;)

Studying hard...

2006-06-06T10:09:00.000-07:00

With PCAT coming up in less than 3 weeks now, I'm almost panicking. I took practice PCAT by myself last Saturday, and got something like 56%?? on it. And my verbal ablilty (antonym and analogy, which I suck at anyways) came out to be about 40% ....Goodness gracious. I couldn't even guess becaus I had no idea what the words meant, some of them which I've never seen in my life. So with the shock I've got, I decided to study study and study... before I really get 50% on the actual PCAT. I need at least 86 on it to be considered a "candidate" by the college. Sigh. A girl I met while volunteering at the pharmacy who's taking it at the same time as I do, but she seemed pretty careless, saying that she doesn't have time to study because of all her summer classes and she knows she'll do bad on it but doesn't really care anyways. I'm pretty amazed because here I am, almost freaking out, and she says she's not gonna study for it... I don't think I really buy that, there are people who always say "oh I didn't really study for it" and get like 99 on their tests, and plus, would anybody really want to waste $105 just to fail it? I'm going to take it again later but I still don't want to do bad on it the first time. The thing I worry the most about is the vocabulary and chemistry... For chemistry it's hard because I don't have access to the periodic table(what????) or a calculator (not really of a problem for me, but still), and for vocab, I just don't know any words. I started to make flash cards and memorize bunch of SAT words now... I tested them to my sis' bf who is english major, and he got 90% them correct... which makes me a little pissed. Ah well. Should stop blogging and start studying again... I always seem to run out of time to do everything I plan to do that day, I guess I must list too many things to do for one day. I also realized just now that I haven't been practicing for like 5 days... shame, shame.

I came across to a Japanese blog and I tried to read them... and realized that I don't know even 10% of the Kanji letters that he wrote. It's went: Kanji, some hiragana words, Kanji, some katakana, kanji, and some hiragana... (But from his profile, I could figure out that he's 27 yrs old, Male, and has a part-time job; アルバイト <-which is supposed to be German(?). But who knows if I interpreted it correct or not???) I recognized few words that I learned when I was in Korea, but I had no idea what they actually mean... I also have no idea how to pronounce them in Japanese either. Same thing happened when I looked over at a Japanese book that my dad has; Kanji after kanji after kanji. Man, forget about learning grammar stuff, I need to know what the words mean before I can figure out if it's in past tense or present tense! It's same for any language I guess, I always think that grammar is important, but knowing the words are even more important. Without knowing words, you can't describe anything you want to say, because... well, you just don't know the words for what you want to describe. As for grammar part, let the natives figure them out... I bet they'll understand at least 70% of what you were trying to say without proper exact grammar. I'd like to be able to read simple everyday texts (like the blog that I gave up on reading further; I could pick out some of the grammar patterns I learned but that didn't really help), that would be cool. I'd like to study next semester material of Japanese, but my schedule doesn't work out, thanks to stupid physiology and orchestra. Arg. I'll just take them next next semester, and hope that I don't forget what little I learned about Japanese. Why didn't the Japanese people just not use Kanji and rely on using hiragana and Katakana only, like Korean Hangul does? That would make things 100 times easier...

The placebo effect

2006-06-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

So my dad, like a typical Korean man who goes crazy over those "healthy well-being" products, bought home three large jars of honey and one small jar of royal jelly. Mom wasn't really happy, because my house already has sufficient honey, and nobody really bothers to eat them anyways. But my dad insisted on how "his honey" is different from others and how he got it at much lower price then any other store (mom thinks buying at Costco is way cheaper), along with the health benefites of the honey(especially royal jelly) and other "witness stories" that he heard from people who consumed royal jelly. And today he went on and on about how he doesn't feel any tired today and slept very well last night because he had the royal jelly. I pretty much went "sure, sure" over it, as I know how he gets like this every time he buys some ginseng or a balance bracelet. (Yesterday he also made me search online for a new balance bracelet because he lost his or it broke or something; I for instance don't believe in that stuff, I mean how's some metal+gold bracelet on wrist help people fell less tired and more energetic??? But dad believes it works, and if he thinks the sky's yellow color, it is. What? You think it's blue? You are out of your mind!!) I also looked online for study on royal jelly, and there isn't much of a miraculous thing about it. It's pretty much made up of carbo (sugar), lipids, and some protein, and the only thing that people know for sure is that it helps in lowering cholesterol. I guess that's something, but I believe the effect my dad's feeling is 99% placebo effect.

I don't understand this "well-being" phenomena in Korean culture, especially among males. It's all over the place! There's well-being food like ginseng, green tea and other organic products, well-being snacks (like Oh-yes chocolate cake snack, or cookies made out of various cereals), well-being crayons, and the craziest I've seen so far, well-being origami paper. Yes, an well-being origami paper that's non-acidic and I think it had some green-tea powder in it or something. I don't think I'll be surprised if there's well-being T-shirt, well-being brick, or a well-being piano. God, what is going on with these people??! It's like everything has to be well-being!! And do they really believe that by using some well-being paper it'll make them healthier? I'll rather exercise more! (which I really should by the way.) I don't have any objection to living a healthy lifestyle, it's just that I don't understand the whole obsession with consuming everything well-being. What an weird, weird phenomena it is...

This happend a second ago:
Dad: I think the royal jelly has positively amazing effect on me, I don't feel tired at all, and when I woke up this morning, I felt really good!
Mom: That's just what you think, how would you know its effect in just one day?
Dad: No, it really makes difference, I can feel it!
Me: Dad, that's just a placebo effect. I looked at this medical website and it said that only thing it does is reduce cholesterol.
Dad: Oh what does the western medicine know about royal jelly? The oriental medicine says it's good for you!
Mom: I've never heard of oriental medicine mentioning royal jelly before. You just heard from what other people says about it, that's all.
Me: It's the placebo effect!
Dad: Well, it works for me! (meaning 'don't care what anybody says, it works if I say it works')
Me: (rolls me eyes)

Updates!!

2006-05-30T22:06:00.000-07:00

So, what have I done with my unproductive days so far??
Let's see... Today I had Serena and Avonasac over at my house for dinner. I haven't seen Avons since last winter, and it was good to see him again. He's pretty much the same though. I saw Serena quite often these days so there weren't many new surprises for me. We had sushi and played Sims, and watched Il Divo and JB concert at Serena's request. I was actually little bit worried about being awkward with Avons because we haven't seen each other for quite a time, but he's the same, and he didn't really have to try to be relaxed whether if he's at his own house or someone else's. Anyways, I had good time, and I'm too full that I feel like I can almost burst. Yuck.
For yesterday, Sakana's friend had her first solo concert with orchestra (9 years old!) and my family went to see it. She was very very cute and played very nicely too. I'm sure she was just glad that it was over. Afterewards we went to her house for a small party, and had lots of food again. Mom brought Kalbi and 냉채 (cold noodle salad), and even though Kalbi was almost burnt to a soot, everyone seemed to like the food. And with Komala's mom, being one of the most talkative person I know of, we talked a great deal about things ranging from Korean dramas to my school to choosing a right musical instrument for Komala. Even my head started to ache by the end of it. But all good, all good. I wonder how many pounds I'll gain by the end of this week. So far the "exercise every day" plan hasn't been working... But at least I do sit-ups now whenever I watch TV.
And on Friday, my family had our pictures taken at the studio, along with my dog Doori. Me and my sister got confronted at the front entrance of the mall when an ignorant security guard blocked us from coming into the building with a pet, asking if we had the mall manager's permission. But we didn't back down, and he called another security guard who went "Owww Puppy!" and allowed us to go in...:) I was more afraid of my dog biting a small kid or some other person, but nothing bad happened and he behaved quite well. The photographer didn't really know how to get the dog's attention, but I made her hold his treats and ding! My dog didn't even move. The pictures came out all right, except I look almost frozen and awkward because all my attention was on Doori to try to keep him stay still. (The same goes for my mom.) Oh and my dog looks like he's chocking because my family's hands were arond his neck to try to make him still and look up the camera. Very funny but very cute also.

I should really really really really start studying for sure, before I regret slacking off for way too long. I keep reminding myself that PCAT's coming up, but I just couldn't get myself to sit down and concentrate. But tomorrow I'll study... really study...

Just what I think

2006-05-25T21:56:00.000-07:00

Only desperate people seek god. The fear was what created religion in the first place, the fear of unknown and uncertainty. (This is at least what Prot says in K-PAX.) If you don't need any help from anybody, if you don't have the urge to depend on something greater than life, then you won't be needing a god.
I think the concept of god is like a parent. A child depends on the parent for the satisfaction and relief of being taken care of and/or protected. It's same for the christianity; we are children of god, aren't we? We ask god for what we want and need; health, prosperity, peace... etc, same as a child would ask parent for what he/she wants and needs. It's the parent's job to look out for the children and provide those, and reward/punish as necessary. This again, is same for the idea of god, at least in Christian way. Now here's a thing though; when children grow up, they are not depended on their parents anymore. They learn to become independent and make decisions for themselves. But following in Christian way, you never become truly independent. I guess my point is that believing and depending entirely in god, is like not growing up and leave from your parent's wings. Sure people want things secure, they want to belive that they are in good hands and somebody's always there to look after for them. This carries on from their childhood till their adulthood. When things get tough, you have someone to pray (or whine) to, and believe that god will be sympathetic. When things work out really nice, well, I guess you have someone to thank to and believe you are getting rewarded. But isn't that also like blaming though? Things happen because god intended them to, and it's not something that you can decide or have control of. There's nothing you can do... but pray (and beg for forgiveness??). I know quite few people who acts that way, and the more and more I think about it it doesn't make sense. I don't like that idea, I want myself to be in control and be independent of my life. I'm not gonna blame or give credit to things other than some dumb luck or random incident. Think that's too dry? Well, isn't it like Santa Clause... when you learn (or figure it out cuz it's just so darn obvious) that he doesn't enslave raindeers to pull his fat body from the sled and dump out billions of "free" toys? Does that just make christmas presents dry?? It's when people feel helpless of things happening to their life that they cling to god, someone who have power to change things for them and guide through it. Not for me though; at least hasn't been for few years. Crappy things happen, along with good things. Deal with it. Don't blame it on other things. Try again.

Wanna know what I believe in? I believe in people. I believe that in most people (yes, not all of them but most of them) there are natural goodness and sympathy residing. I believe in the faith of those people, the will , the love, and the courage. And I believe in myself. It's only my belief though. (Why can't we get rid of those ridiculous you-should-be-burn-in-hell-if-you-don't-believe-in-my-reliegion ideas and just keep "the love and forgivness for each other" part?) Would what I wrote make christians angry? Would some of them be sad that I've lost faith in god? Pray for me that I would go back to his love again? I don't know. I'm still young, and I don't think I've experienced enough things to figure out "life" yet. I'm just a girl who came to realize there wasn't any Santa Clause in the first place afterall. One thing that I know, is that I've left my nursery home, and not looking back.

(*For those people going "what the heck's gotten into her head this time?": the trigger to write this post was my friend's blog, which is filled with bible passages, hymns, and songs relating to god. My friend has exceptional faith and love for god, which was fine to me as long as she felt at ease with it. But it kinda also made me to write about what I believe in as well. Now only the people who are not sinners can throw rocks at me! Repent! just kidding ;)

I miss it.

2006-05-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

I miss Korea. I get this feeling time to time, but what triggered it this time I think is because two of my good friends are going to Korea. I think one of them isn't there because she really really wanted to, and I believe she's getting home sick already, but still. I'd do almost anything to be where she is now. The slightest things make me think of Korea, like certain smell in the neighborhood, smell of tree (at least when I was in NY; no real "trees" here), weather, noises, night view... etc. Usually those make me think of good memories that warms my heart, but I quickly put it aside because I know I'd get sick from it if I linger on it too much from my past experiences. The first two years in NY was definitely the worst time of my life even though nobody really knows about this, being so homesick in every manner. I thought I would go crazy. May be I wanted to go crazy,and make things a little easier. There were times where my body's in NY but my mind would be somewhere in Korea, wandering someplace in my memories. The whole day, whole week, whole months I'd be in that state, where I suddenly wake up from it and realize that is not where I am now, and get depressed. My homesick grew into mortal fear and paranoia when I discovered that I would not be able to visit there again until my visa gets resolved, and I became desperately depressed. I missed my friends, and I missed my family. I was paranoied that they would forget me, that I'd be erased from their life, their memory. Being forgotten by others, when I think about them day and night, was almost intoxicating. They would forget me, like everything else as time passes. And when I get to finally see them again, there will be a total awkwardness between us, our lives so different from one another with no particular common ground anymore. (I know now that this isn't true, but back than it seemed as real as me not being able to go back.) This I feared the most, and it ultimately affected my life in NY as well, where I couldn't open up to almost anybody. It makes sense; how can a person actually live a life when his/her mind only lingers in the past? I was good at holding onto the past, but not letting go and move on, partly because the past was so dear to me. I did a good job hiding everything from everybody, and I was quite successfu at it tool. Now I still have couple really good friends in NY that I keep in touch and I'm very grateful for that, but if someone wants me to re-live those days I wouldn't. Anyways, one day I realized how serious my condition was and decided that thinking about Korea does not help me in any ways. I needed to live my life as it is, whether good or not, and move on. And soon I forced myself into stop thinking about it, and it helped, although somewhere in back of my mind the feeling still lingers till now.
And what would happen if I can go to Korea now? Right now, I'm utterly surprised that I'll be a junior in College next semester. Junior. It's more scary than any other feelings that comes up. (Man am I old!) I was in 8th grade when I came to US, and if I didn't decide to go into Pharmacy, I'll be graduating college in two years! What have I done with my life until now? It seems like freshman days were just yesterday... I don't know how time passed this quickly... or yeah, I do know, I spent all those time going to classes, taking tests, studying, all that crap. And because Korean colleges begin during spring instead of fall, my friends in Korea are already getting ready for graduation projects and searching for jobs. My god we are not kids, I mean students, anymore. That would make it even more awkward when I get tosee my friends again, because when I left we were classmates and best friends, and when we meet again we'll be working adults. I also feel kind of left out of the "group" when I see my friends hanging out together almost every other day and post their pictures on webs. I can't share the jokes they are sharing with one another, and I don't know about their interests as they don't know about my interests. But I do miss them, and I know they miss me too, although as I predicted we don't think about each other as often as we were in middle school. I'd like to give it a try though; surely it won't be so awkward. And what if it is? I'm not so doubtful anymore, too much thinking and worrying is not good for anyone's health.

Two unexpected calls

2006-05-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

Today I got two unexpected calls from my long-time-n0-see/talk friends. It's been about 5~6 months since I've actually talked to them, and I feel like I'm a really bad friend. I'm realizing how lazy I am to just get myself to say Hi to some of my old friends. It's a miracle that I still keep in touch with many of my friends from Korea and NY, and it's probably due to my friends that I still do. I really was super busy and tired last semster, but that's not really an excuse, is it? Anyways, it was a pleasant surprise, even though it was little awkward since we haven't talked to each other for such a long time... And like my mom, I'm not really a phone person either. I prefer meeting people in person and talk than just call people and talk. It's always a little awkward for me, partly because I don't really know what to talk about. I do like to talk a lot if I have something to talk about, but I'm not a real chatterbox, and when there's no given "topic", I just don't know what to do. It's especailly hard with quite people too. I also find it hard to talk with people who I've just met. I mean, what do you talk about? The weather?? I think it's remarkable that some people can just talk and talk and talk almost endlessly, and even though it's bit annoying sometimes, I think it might be very useful sometimes.

Anyways, BK's call was even more surprising because she said she's in Las Vegas right now. What?? Las Vegas??? I mean she told me that she might be visiting California this summer, but I wasn't expecting her to be at Las Vegas, especially today! And here's what she said: "Hey, I'm at Las Vegas now. Can you come down here sometime?" ...Ok... unnie. My house, is not next door to Las Vegas, or LA, or Grand Canyon. I'd go there now if it's as close as Phoenix or even Flagstaff, but Las Vegas? Yeah, sure I'd just love to go there now; it's a fun place to be in even if you are not old enough to gamble. But with PCAT coming up soon, I think I'd better stay here and prepare for it rather than waste a week's time in Las Vegas... even though latter is what I feel more like doing. And I do want to see her too. *sigh* I won't have any life until I get into the college of pharmacy.... But once I'm in, screw A's. I believe I've suffered enough, thank you very much.

My car's back

2006-05-17T22:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, and it is beautiful and shiny... It's perfect!! I was so happy when I saw it I could've cried. I still need to call the insurance company for things but... It's so hard to just talk to those people because I always have to go through this weird 1-800 numbers when I just want to talk to the people in the office. Stupid automatic answering systems. Anyways, Rental car has been really uncomfortable, especially since I had to drive my family memebers around town because I was the only one registered to use that car. And driving them around town cost me so much time that I wasn't able to start on PCAT preparation yet. I've so far made plans, but no actual studying yet... I feel like I'm running out of time, instead of having too much time for myself. I hardly feel like I'm on break... things keep happening and happening. So far I was able to study vocabs every day and practice somewhere between 1:30~3:00 daily (and now my left hand's hurting... but it should be all right after I get used the extanded practice time. For some reason, my hands hurt less after I practice for a while; I think excercising it makes them bit more relaxed??) As for today, it was my parent's 25th anniversary, so we went to "Eat at Joes" for dinner (just because we've never been there before; it was so-so for my opinion, especially there weren't any vegeteranian menu). Right now I'm trying to finish up the champaign that my sister bought; it's bit strong, but surprisingly I don't have any headaches, and I'm not drunk yet, at least I don't think I am lol. Instead of sweet taste, it rather tastes sour... But the bottle was pretty, so all is good. Also I don't feel tired :) May be I should drink alcohol when I study for tests instead of drinking red bulls... hehe. Or would it just kill more brain celss?? Anyways, looking at tomorrow's schedule where I have two tutorings, I don't think I'll be able to study to my heart's content tomorrow as well. And I do need to study; PCAT's only 5 weeks away! Ahhh where all did my "free time" go, I wonder?

So freakin hot

2006-05-11T22:11:00.000-07:00

Today was the hottest day yet... Summer really has started. I think today was almost 99 degrees; when the average temperature becomes somewhere around 95~100F, the real summer's in for Tucson. And that means that whenever I drive, I have to endure the gruesome feeling of my hands and arms being roasted by the sunlight. I gotta start wearing sunblocks on my arms or I'll get skin cancer for sure. (Or black arms.) And what's worse than the despicable heat? Allergies!! I'm suffering like never before! (Ok. That's not really true... my eye allergy was worse last year, when I couldn't even open my eyes in the mornings because they were stuck together like someone had put super glue on my eyelids.) I'm sneezing, having stuffy nose, sore throat, and the worst of all, itchy eyes. Now I can endure pain, but I can't endure itching! So I start scraching my eyes, and soon it's red and painful to touch, but the itching never stops! It's the worst torture ever. I tried the allergy eye drops, but I don't think they work so well... I'm also taking Zyrtec (?? It's some allergy treatment medicine that my aunt sent to my mom about an year ago. It says 지르텍 on the cover so I guess it must be Zyrtec, the one I saw at the pharmacy; I had to fill prescription for the whole Williams family suffering from allergies. Poor them.), and it does work but it takes about an hour or two to actually start working. I'm currently loathing the yellow pollens covering up the roadside day and night. I wish rain would come and wash those away, and cool down things a little bit...

Oh and bad news for me: I got B on my Ochem. Arg. crap. F#$%. And I'm only off by like 2 percent to get an actual A. It's very disappointing when I've tried so hard over the semster... and it's true that having my cousins and aunts at my house was little distracting and tiring, but still I was hoping for an A. Aaah well. I guess I have to try harder for next time; I'm not the person to linger over it forever. I also did crappy on my Physics final today, mostly because I didn't study for it as I should've had; this time I only spent like what? 40 minutes on studying? Shame on me, I know... But I had to finish doing homework!....which I procrastinated on till the last minute. No wonder I did terrible on it... Let us still hope for "the miracle", eh?

Two down, one more to go

2006-05-10T22:49:00.000-07:00

I just had my Japanese final done! That means that only physics final, which is tomorrow, is left and then I'm not required to do anything more! Yesterday I learned that I have A on (at least) Ochem lab, and it made my day because I was sort of thinking that I'll get a B ... I did absolutely horrible on the quizzes so I dunno how I got an A, but I'm not complaining. Another surprising thing was that I got something like 96% on the Japanese oral test; it's more puzzling then surprising. I thought I did horrible, because sensee was just speaking super fast (may be that's the normal speed for Japanese speakers but still...) without giving me any time to think, I mixed up all past/present tenses, and sometimes I didn't even understand what he was asking me. May be he was so tired (and he looked very very tired that day) that he didn't remember all the mistakes I made. Again, I got good grades so I'm not complaining. Today's Japanese final went fine I think, as long as I didn't make stupid mistakes. I spent nearlly all day reading "Memoirs of a geisha" and only studied for the final for about 50 minutes before the test, which I regretted as I looked at the time while studying but still managed to do fine. Good thing the final wasn't so specific. The book is very intersting and it's one of the kinds that certainly makes you keep on reading; definitely banned from me during school days because those books don't let me do anything else. I got hooked immediately while I was reading it at the school bookstore, and bought it some time later with a discount coupon. I didn't expect it to be so sexual starting about the middle of the story, but I guess the story has to deal with it... Also surprising how manipulative the characters are... even though that's what makes it fun to read. I'm about four chapters away from the end, and I'm suspecting that it'll somehow end vaguely without settling things out for sure. I'd like to see the movie once I'm done with the book; I'm sure it'll be very interesting. And if not, it'll at least have beautiful scenes. Is it rated R? I wonder... I heard that the book shows very inaccurate version of real geisha, and I'd like to see what the Japanese people thought about the book/movie. Won't it be like an american guy making movie about Koreans?? Interesting...

Another thing happened(?) today; mom told me she heard from the radio that JB will be playing Mendelssohn concerto at 8pm, and I looked all over the internet to find out that he's not on TV but just on radio. Because my final started at 8pm I asked mom to record it for me, so I got to listened to it once I got home. I've been wanting to hear Mendelssohn partly because I've decided to practice the 1st and 2nd movements, and I'll probably learn the 3rd movement next semester. I have CD of it, I don't remember who's playing it was but probably Sterne's, but I didn't get to listen to it for some time because I think all my CD's inside my car at repair shop (or I've lost it all). And Marcus told me that he'd been listening to JB's Mendelssohn and "it's so beautiful....". So naturally I wanted to hear him play it. My impression of it was... I think he's playing it bit too fast, it sounded like he's racing sometimes. And he's sound is very light/higher/feminine?? even though he played it powerfully. Sometimes it felt like he just whipped through some of the passages, which is weird because I thought JB's pretty sensual about playing expressively on those. Yes, he played it very virtuosically and flash, but too much of it if that's possible. I thought he's own cadenza was pretty cool (and very flash of course), even though some people criticize him for "daring to ignore" the original cadenza and writing/playing his own. But cadenzas were originally written and performed by performers as I know of it, and I'm not against people writing their own and expressing it in other ways. The unfortunate thing was that my tape ran out and mom forgot to turn it over so I only have like 2 minutes of the 3rd movement, which was my main reason/purpose of recording it. Ah well, I have the other movements at least...And I think I like my CD version better, where it's more weighted/grounded/stable. May be my ears' are just used to that one more.

Oh and speaking of concertos, I got my Jury comment forms. I got two pass, one exceeds expectations, and a pass with questionmark and arrow on "Does not pass expectations" (does not pass to next level) pointing to the circled "Pass". I guess that evens it out... but I was a little startled to see that the "does not pass expectations" almost got circled. I didn't think I did that bad, even though almost all the comments pointed out that I had some intonation problems (sigh) and crunching sound. Except those, I thought I sounded nice. (It was quite funny to see how all the comments started with "bravo!" or "very good job!" and ends with "your this isn't good, you need to improve these... practice that...etc."). I guess it wasn't good enough to move me into 300 level, but I think they decided to let me pass since I'm not a music major... More reason to practice and get better!

Final's almost over

2006-05-08T13:06:00.000-07:00

And that means the summer break will be starting soon! Woohoo!
Actually, only one of my finals' over, which is ochem...I think I'm going to get B on it after trying so hard to get an A. arg :( And I'm only off by like 2~3 percent too. I was hoping I could get at least one A in chemistry... But we'll see if some miracle happens and I get an A. *sigh* Oh and violin jury is over too. I did ok, except that I played couple wrong notes and it sounded like I was re-composing Bach concerto. I haven't got my comment forms yet so I don't know about passing/failing it. I would have played nearly perfectly without mistakes if I could look at the music, but since Bach didn't give me any breaks to actually turn the pages, that was impossible. My brain always turns blank white whenever I have to perform in front of people, and since I was fighting so hard to just force my 'conscious' to stay with me (don't blank out... don't blank out... crap I played that out of tune... ok, now focus... -misses another note- crap, what the hell am I doing?!!! Focus!), I couldn't concentrate entirely on the music itself. Oh well, at least my hands didn't shake that time. I wasn't that nervous that time, mostly because I've done it before. But it's still not as comfortable as just playing im my room. I wonder how concert musicians deal with this; are they just able to be in their little "zone" and play like nobody's there with absolute focus? Or do they play even better because they know somebody's watching them?? It's a mystery....mystery.

Anyways, while volunteering at the pharmacy, I came up with lists of things that I want to do during summer, and here it is:
1. Read at least one book a week. (Any recommendations are welcomed!)
2. Learn how to cook good food; collect recipes.
3. Improve/practice drawing, painting, art-related stuff.... Get at least one painting done.
4. Watch good movies! (also Korean movies!)
5. Exercise everyday (my biggest challenge so far)
6. Studay for PCAT
7. Improve/practice violin. (practice for at least 2hrs per day; revisit learned piecies.)
8. Find music to play with Annie.
9. Learn how to juggle!
10. Search for pharmacy school to apply.
11. Write. I'm thinking of continuing some of the stories that I've started, but as always, there are tons of ideas but no actual writing yet.

There will be other things that I'll be doing in summer, like taking summer class and stuff, but I'll write about them as they come up. As for now, I gotta start paying attention to two upcoming finals, Japanese and physics, which I'm not so worried about but still gotta study anyways...

Hana's development

2006-05-03T00:03:00.000-07:00

Are you flowering... yet? ....yet? ....now? ....not yet?
(oh you can also observe the dead fly decomposing slowly along with Hana growing...)

Excecuted

2006-05-02T23:51:00.000-07:00

...By this dude:

Beware.

Fortunate, Unfortunate

2006-04-27T21:43:00.001-07:00

So this morning, I had my very first grand car collision accident. I was driving down Campbell to go to school as usual, and when I got to intersection on Roger, some blue car appeared out of nowhere (Ok, it was trying to make left turn from the opposite side, and apparently didn't see me coming because big black truck thingie was blocking her view); I hit the break as quickly (and hard) as possible but apparently I didn't see her soon enough, and whithin two and a half seconds I could hear the horrible crashing sound... I really thought the airbag would go off, and tried to put my face as far away as I can, but fortunately it didn't go off and I saved my face. For a few seconds I just didn't know what to do, and decided call my mom, and afterwards I called 911 (for the first time in my life. Woohoo! It's a record!). They told me they already got the report from the other person and someone's coming this way... I couldn't do anything but just stand by the car, which had its front bumper literally smashed. The other car had its side door pushed in. I saw the driver was a woman, and had a small girl on the back seat. (The girl must have been really scared; I could've almost ran into her directly if it was close. I wonder if her mom had her wear sit belts or not.. Anyways she walked/ran around fine so I assumed she's fine.) After few minutes, some nice lady walked up to where I my was standing and gave her card saying she saw everything and she's willing to testify if needed. A very kjnd act, I wonder if I would do the same thing if I was her. I should have her as a role model and do the same thing if something like this happens to other people. Anyways, I accepted the card saying thank you and notice my hand was shaking. (my hands starts to shake whenever I'm nervous or in adrenaline shock, which I've experienced couple of times before and just plain hate it). I was panicking not because I had accident, but because I didn't know what to do in that kind of situation. I really think school doesn't teach you anything useful in life; they should have class like "life skills" or something, that teaches you how to act in certain situations like in emergencies, accidents, and also other things like dealing with relationships, building self images etc... just how to deal with real life and real situations. Anyways the cop came few minutes later and directed us to park at some less crowded street, and took all the necessary information, decided that it was the other person's fault, gave her ticket, explained how she was going to pay for all the damages done on my part and when that's done I can signed the form so she doesn't get convicted or something, and left. (He asked if anybody needed paramedics... hmm. Oh and that "witness" lady also came out of nowhere and gave her account of the accident, I think she enjoys doing these stuffs.) So that's all swell and nice, except that I missed my Japanese chapter test...arg. The teacher decided to let me take it later, so it's ok i guess.

So for the people who do not know what to do when they have car accident for the very first time, here's what to do:
1.Call the cops. Follow their directions, and give them whatever information they require.
2. If it is decided that it's entirely the other person's fault, you don't have to do anything; let the other person's insurance pay for the towing, renting car, and fixing the car. I called my insurance company like 4 times because they kept saying they'll look up the information and call me back, but in the end I found out that nothing really needed to be done on my part; the other person reports it to his/her insurance company and they take care of it.
Now if you are the one responsible for the accident, I guess you have to call up the insurance company and let them know, but I'm not sure about anything else since I wasn't that person today... Wheew.

I didn't feel like driving anymore today but I had to anyways, since I had classes to attend and tutoring to do... I felt very nervous whenever I see opposing car waiting for left turn or someone drives too close to me.. I guess the "bad luck year" really is this yea. Or should I think it as a good luck? Nobody didn't get killed or seriously injured by the accident (although now my neck's starting to hurt a bit now), the other lady involved in the accident was quite calm and did not bitch about it and had good insurance. The" bad luck" continued when my accompanist 'fogot' that he was supposed to come and play with me during my lesson time and I ended up playing alone, but "good luck" is that I found him right after the lesson in practice rooms and was able to give music to him. And my physics lab presentation got cancled when I sacrificed valualbe sleep preparing for it but it helped me to have slightly more time to study for my ochem test tomorrow... which reminds me that I should be studying, and not blogging... uugh. But it was too memorable an experience not to write about it. I should really go studying..

They are here! They are here!!

2006-04-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

Oh yes. They are here. My aunts and two of my cousin came from Korea, and also my cousin's family who lives in LA came over two days ago. I haven't seen my aunt and my cousins for nearly 7 years, it's almost surreal. In my opinion, they became more mature looking (of course). One thing that striked me was that they seem small to me, even my aunt who I used to think as big. May be I got too used to the "american people size". At least I don't feel short around them :p. My dog still didn't bite any of my nieces (yet), which is quite amazing. Now my nices are getting more and more brave and try to pet Doori, and I'm in between two of them trying to prevent any disasters...Speaking of my nieces, I almost had near death experience the other night, when Ashley climbed up my back and squeezed my neck. I finally have an idea of what it's like to be chocked to death, and it's not so fun. You can't even scream; I had to tickle her viciously to get free.
Aaahhhh I'm soo tired to write anything anymore, I'll just list things that happened last couple days...
1. My dog displaced his hind leg knee bone yesterday. Me and my sister notice that he yelped whenever he tried to sit down or lie down, and he didn't want to walk down stairs. And last night he whined the whole time and didn't go to sleep, which also made me sleep deprived... no wonder I'm dead tired today. He went to the vets today, and he's fine now.
2.I almost lost my wallet yesterday. This morning my mom asked me when I lost my wallet, and I was like"huh?? what are you talking about? I didn't lose my wallet..." And she told me that some guy called my dad's cell phone (which is weird.. how on earth did he find out my dad's phone number??) and he dropped off my wallet this morning. I checked online for my debit and credit card usage and so far nothing has changed... but I really don't even remember when I dropped my wallet.. hmm
3.I saw three kids from my high school today for All-state music fastival, which was hosted by my school this year. For two of them, I saw them when they were in 8th grade, when we were in orchestra together. We made huge snowman together (with 소영) at winter tour in Flagstaff, and had great time... Robby is sooo tall now, and really cute :). He was cute before, but he's even more cuter now. (And always asking "Do you remember me?" whenever we meet...Of course I do, Robby. Of course.) Same goes with Chalotte, they are both really cute. And James... I didn't even hear him talk today, which was almost near miracle for him... may be he's bit more mature now and don't talk as much, but I wouldn't believe it.

Ugh I can't keep my eyes open anymore... Good night people, before I faint....Zzzzzz

God or Girl

2006-04-17T22:53:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching one of the episodes of some kind of reality show on A&E called "God or Girl". It's about few college aged guys seriously debating whether to become a Catholic priest or not, and it was pretty interesting. And it also made me think about myself few years ago. I believe giving up one's life to devote it fully to something, whether it's art or religion or sports or academics, is one of the most noblest things that a person can do. Not only because it's a very difficult thing to do, but because it takes tremendous courage and sacrifice. It's so much easier just being "regular" or just being slightly more devoted to somethings then others, and live a normal life. Yes, some people are born so gifted and it seems like there's only one thing that they would consider doing while living in this world, but to many many other people who aren't so lucky, making a decision about such things is a huge step. That's probably why I admire people who decides to become professional musicians, to devote their life to music when they know it's not the best career they can have. I think it's courage, but may be they just don't really know any other things that they are good at... just j/k ;) People who decides to become musicians are talented, extremely talented, determined, and hard working. Now I don't have that kind of talent nor courage to become a "real" musician, which I have to tell it to myself time to time so I can stop comparing myself to others and beat myself up. I'm one of those "regular" folks who just wants to enjoy playing and have fun, even though these days it's become an extra stress source. I guess I'm doing too many things, each additional things I have to do adding to the stress I'm getting. Oh school will be over in about 2~3 weeks so hopefully it won't be a stress to me anymore. (Either that, or I won't be getting stress because I won't be taking lessons during summer... I'm sorry Sam, only kidding).

Anyways, it's quite amazing and weird that some people are so into religions. I don't think it's a bad thing; having a faith is important part of life, and people in religious groups do many good things. It's only that it becomes problem when people are so religious that they would not accept or even try to listen to others, but only want to believe in what they believe in. I hate that kind of idea, where there can't possibly be anything wrong to what they believe in. White is white, black is black, I'm right, you are so wrong, and don't even think about arguing with me because no matter what you say, you are the one having misconceptions, and I cannot be wrong. Where in that attitude can someone find a logical reasoning? This blind "faith" that some people call is just plain ridiculous. Yes, I was quite religious as a child and loved being at church, and was comforted by the idea that someone will always be on my side and looking over me. But I've outgrown them (so to say) because there are just so many contradictory things going on. I was taught that having a faith without needing to question it was a noble thing to do, and I did think it was so after learning about Thomas who had to put his hand in Jesus' side(??? ok, I guess I didn't really paid attention in bible classes...) and Jesus said “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believed.” Come on. I'm a scientist in treinee, and teachers trained me well. The only way to be closer to the "truth" is to question it, over and over again. And things that hasn't been tested and questioned for is not worth believing. Blind faith gets you nowhere, and thinking what you believe is the absolute truth is a big no. That's why I kind of like the Buddhistic idea of questioning for the truth, but then I think they are bit too self-oriented and abstract... and I also don't believe in the "reincarnation" or the "cycle of life" crap; once you are dead, you are dead. That's it. End of story. And what's so bad about it? I'll rather shoot myself if I have to live an "eternal life" (but then I won't be able to die because I'll have an eternal life...ahh the irony, the irony). Whatever. It frustrates me to see that some people are just so blinded and deafened by their own faith they choose not to accept any other things... religion or not... They should learn to open up first. May be we need a new sort of religion... that actually cares about this world, this moment first rather than the "afterlife" and some unknown promised things. The worlds needs improvement now, not in afterlife, right? Bah, I'm tired, I should sleep so that I can wake up in the morning... uggh headaches.

(Oh and to update: Hana, my flower, is growing well. It's about 3cm tall now, with 3 strong looking pretty leaves. I named it Hana, meaning one in korean, because it's the only one came out from 10 seeds that I've planted. It also means flower in Japanese, so it goes with it well together...)

Looking for a change.

2006-04-14T21:35:00.000-07:00

I've been depressed, yes, I admit that. But being depressed doesn't help anybody. So I decided not to be depressed anymore, and as simple as that, I'm no longer depressed. (Rather, I made up my mind to jump off the music building if I don't get it by this week. God help me. But I like my new Beethoven piece so far, which keeps my sanity intact...) Some personality test that I did some time ago said my mood changes like the waves in the ocean, and I guess that's really true. Anyhow, you really are as happy as you decide to be, and I'd rather be happy then unhappy.

So today I wanted to talk about something that I shouldn't talk about. (Well, nobody's making me not to say anything about it, it's just that I know I shouldn't. Whatever.) It's so hard to keep a secret. I wish I can just talk about it with somebody without having to gamble about how much I can let them know, or trying to figure out how much they know about it. Anyways since I can't share this with anybody that has possbility of not being able to keep a secret, I'll just let my heart out here.
It's been a little confusing for me for few weeks. I appreciate that he's been honest with me, but I don't know what to do with that information. And why on earth did he tell me when he won't let other people know about it? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who knows about this, but how many other people? And I don't like them hiding, or this little game of having to care for her "approvals" when I try to talk to him, whenever I see them together, or whenever I see her at hall. I feel like she's using him. Or may be he's using her too. The question that's been bothering me for quite some time is... How is it possible to like more than one person at a time? What's 'a kind of like somebody'? I'd never think of it as a true feeling; I have no idea how it's working out between them. They both have the same need for each other, and I'm sure they like each other, but isn't the fact that they are hiding it enough evidance that it's not right? And what's up with her? She acts like she owns him or something, and that's fine with me except that she's in no position to act that way herself. I sure hope he doesn't get hurt at the end of all this... and I surely surely hope that he doesn't have any misunderstandings about me. The problem is that he's too nice, he's sort of the person who wants to please everyone. And believe me, those type of people are the hardest to deal with...

Don't be so dejected? -_-+

2006-04-13T21:05:00.000-07:00

I played the worst ever in lesson today. It wasn't even funny. I know I shouldn't think about it so much when I play, I know that. I just can't not think about it. The result? I played like I've never even bothered to look at the music before. And that's not the true!!!! God, what a wasted lesson time! Urg! It's not like I didn't practiceee! I usually don't play as well as I do at home, but this time it was a total disaster... another 50 minute drill of trying to get my bow arm to do the stupid thing. What a waste of 3 lessons. 3 lessons I did the same thing with him and I still can't do it. Finally, he gave up on trying to make me play rondo, and gave me a new piece... I'm not sure what I should feel about that...other than I freakin suck. God I get so pissed nowdays. Other people get "terriffic" from him, and I get this. In this state of mind, I feel strong urge to just quit. It's no use, I plain suck at this, there's no point continuing. May be it'll be better if I quit and do him a favor, letting him be able to focus on other people who can actually improve. Arg I wish I can give up. But I know I won't let myself, so I'll just have to live with it for the rest of my life.... Somebody shoot me. (no, just kidding, don't shoot me yet. I shall learn how to do this before I die)

Famous, famous.... and Miracle happens.

2006-04-10T21:23:00.000-07:00

So today, I realized at the most random place at the most random time, that Korean dramas are becoming quite popular... at least to other asians. Today I was getting lunch at student union, and at the cashier small asian lady (I think she's Philippine) asked me if I was Korean, and I said yes. And she told me that she watched Korean movie last night, and that she cried the whole time watching it. I asked her what was the name of the movie, and she said it was winter sonata. I realized then it wasn't a movie, but drama... ah ha! There were people behind me, so I kind of just said something like "oh that's very nice.." and had to walk away. Funny thing is, she thought the guy was ok looking, but the girl was soooo pretty LOL. I thought all women went crazy for Mr. "Yonsama" whenever they watched winter sonata but this case he lost... hehe.
And she not the only one. My three other friends, all non-korean asian girls, love korean movies. One never watched any actual dramas but only watched real "movies", and another one never watched real movies but dramas, but whatever, that's not the point here. (It's also interesting how some people say "movie" for what I consider soap operas or dramas). Point is, they just love it, like it, addicted to it. Well, I bet after watching couple of them they will start to see some patterns, like one character must die from uncureable disease (usually cancer, either brain tumor or leukemia), or have lost memory, has painful past, and super rich young head of company falls in love with sassy poor girl who becomes victim of other jealous friends/family of the rich guy. But yes, I admit that they are quite good at creating drama, and making people to get hooked on them, even though some of them are really cheesy. But you won't notice it when you are watching it. Ahhh it's been a while since I've watched any of them.. My family is peculiar that none of the family members watches dramas. Cory also likes Korean movies (not dramas), and he thinks some of them are really well made... and since he likes to analyze those kind of stuffs, I guess it's safe bet that some of the movies are actually good ones. I don't know, I'm more of criticizing person, and I don't have many movies that I think is well made. I should borrow some korean movies during summer break and watch them.. at least mom won't fall asleep ;)

Oh, and a miracle happened today... Last Wednesday, me and couple of my friends went to Pei Wei for lunch after dreadful brain melting ochem test. I was so pissed at that time because I completely got this 15 point question wrong, and I knew how to do it correctly. And since I already got 15 points off, who knows how many other points got taken off?? But when we got to the restaurant, each of us picked fortune cookie and craked them open, and mine said "You'll soon see a miracle". I interpreted it as I'll somehow get A on my test instead of failing it, and my friends were all so jealous of me cuz they didn't get anything like mine :P. So on Friday, grade got posted on the web, and I found out that I got 75... which was better then the average but still very disappointing... But today, TODAY, I got my test back and it said 85!! A possible A!! And the grade on the web also showed it as 85! That just made my day... and I think I'll start believing in miracles now... sweeet! Hooray! yay!!

Last but not the least...

2006-04-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

....

개팔자 상팔자

2006-04-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

I love my dog...

Super sunsets

2006-04-05T20:01:00.000-07:00

Tucson has the most beautiful sky ever.

Ochem is EVIL

2006-04-04T21:23:00.000-07:00

And so is Physics. Whoever came up with those ridiculous ideas, shame on you, shame!!
I probably failed my physics test today, mostly because I didn't study for it at all... I ended up making up all my numbers. I wonder what the professor will think once he sees my test... But then, he's so careless, he'll just look over (hopefully) and give me full credit (which did happened to my friend's friend... he didn't write any answer down but he somehow got full credit). I do get to drop my lowest grade, and I got high A on my first test, so it's ok.

Ochem test is tomorrow, which is the main reason why I didn't bother looking at physics. Tons of good lucks to me, cuz the teacher thinks high score would be around 50 this time. Need to study, study, study,... and stop writing on me blog... But I have red bull, and red bull shall give me wings:) (and hopefully an A too.)

Most important thing happened today: I got presents from 소영!! hehe my mouth is hanging from my ears. She's so busy with her school, she shouldn't have taken time to pick anything for me, but thank you!! I especially appreciate the "dress me up" naked magnetic David (Michellangelo), I stare at him(without cloth) all the time j/k. I dressed him up in sweater and jean, he must be so hot under those in this weather, but it looks good :) I also like the little monster finger puppet, and all the funny sweets... I put the "last Supper- after dinner mint" in my bag, I'm addicted to mints these days. Oh and the dancing hamster... I finally have one of those lol. I couldn't figure out what the hamster was saying until I looked at the box; It was singing "Domo arigato Mr. Roboto" over and over again, and I thought it was saying something about Gecko. (My sister thought it said "scaredy cat"). Anyways, I gotta email her and say thank you, and get red bull and start studying...

Oooh, ooh, I almost forgot

2006-04-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot to mention that I finally have ONE teeny tiny green chubby bud coming out of the flower pot!!! Hooray!!!! That's the only one that came out so far, out of ten seeds that I planted weeks ago. I don't know if nine other seeds are all dead, or just really taking its time shooting out, but I'm still happy. I need to decide what I'm going to call her/him. It has two tiny leaves, and extremely adorable... I'm thankful that at least one came out, even if that might signify that I'll have one out of ten chance of making my wishes come true lol. Now my only fear is that it's not geranium but some kind of weed growing out, and will eventually give yellow flowers instead of red flowers....

Busy day, no?

2006-04-01T10:40:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to study and do Ochem homework on thursday night, but instead I ended up watching King Kong with my family for the first time...
It was quite entertaining (and looong) movie, but I was surprised by the stereotypical and bit racistic side of the movie. (But then, it's a remake of an old movie so...) Why do the natives on the Skull Island has to be black and crazy mean looking? Why do all the minority characters get killed off first? And why oh why a skinny white actress with a Blond hair gets picked by King Kong and not other native women? Also, how on earth did they bring back King Kong with wrecked ship? I thought they were throwing all the heavy stuff off the ship when it hit the rock so they can get out of there, and King Kong looked twice as big as the ship... now that is "the eighth wonder of the world". And when King Kong has romantic moment with the girl on the empire state building, I don't see any animal activist ralling against the police, even though they might not have existed back then. It's kind of sad to see that people will actually pay money to see a tied up exotic animal and enjoy its agony, I bet this still happens around the world. (why am I thinking of exotic animals locked up in zoos and aquariums??) Anyways, it was fun and exciting movie overall, and I should stop trying to analyzing the movie... it's scary how education affects your life @.@ Well, at least my english 102 teacher will be happy.

Anyways, to update on what I've been doing these days...
Going to school, get home, make 50 plans to study and do homeworks and actually doing nothing, end up sleeping till next morning, and get frustrated during practices. Actually this week was very nice because my tutoring students are on spring break now, and they are all out of town so I didn't have to teach them. More time for me to waste, which I did without regrets. Next week, however, will be challenging. I have physics test on Tuesday, and dreadful ochem test on Wednesday. I'll probably spend 90% of the time studying for Ochem and 10% of time looking at physics. That reminds me that I should stop waste more time and start studying... Shoot, I still have lab report to write...

그에 대해서..

2006-03-26T23:06:00.000-07:00

무슨생각이 들어서 그랬는지는 모르겠지만 (아마 또 "바이올린에 대한 한탄을 하다가" 가아닐까=_=) Joshua Bell 에 대해서 인터텟에 찾다가 그에대한 이런글을 발견했다.

내가 생각하는 조슈아 벨은 자신을 잘 드러내지 않을 것 같은 사람이다. 웃는 얼굴로 상황을 잘도 넘긴다. 실리적이고 에고이스트지만 아무도 느끼지 못한다. 부드럽고 친절하지만 때로는 지독하게 고독한 남자다. 연애에 있어서는 좋아해주는 사람은 많지만 그는 늘 웃으며 거리를 유지한다. 이성애자처럼도 보이지 않고 동성애자처럼 보이지도 않는다. 대중적인 연주를 하고 자신의 연주에 만족하지만 때로는 어느 순간 같은 색만을 띄고 있는 소리에 환멸을 느낄 때도 있다. 그러나 곧 새로운 시도를 해봄으로서 극복해나가는 천재다.그는 진심으로 친절하지만 전심으로 사랑하지는 않는다.그에게 있어서 바이올린 이상의 연애대상은 없다.가족과 친구와 주변 인물들을 좋아하지만 지독하게 고독하다.

어느사람이 Josh의 (멋대로 Josh라고 부르기는 좀 그렇지만 이편이 훨씬더 친근감이 들기 때문에...^^) 연주를 듣고 어떤사람일까 생각한내용을 적은것이다. 이글을 읽고 무언가가 번쩍 트이는듯한 느낌을 받았다. 아마, 확실히 그런사람일수도 있다고.. 아니, 그런사람 일거라고. 상냥하고 미소짓고 부드럽지만 항상 남에게서 거리를 두는, 자신만의 공간에 머무는 사람. 친절하지만 남에게 마음을 맏기지 못하고 고독하기 때문에 연주할수 있는사람.

Joshua Bell을 처음 알게된것은 제작년 이었나 작년 이었나 (요즘은 시간계념이 전혀 없다), 이전 바이올린 선생님이 Joshua Bell이 공연을 하니 꼭! 가서 보라고 해주신 덕분에 알게 되었다. 그때까지만 해도 창피하긴 하지만 Joshua Bell이 뭘하는 사람인지도 몰랐다 =_=; 별 갈생각도 없이 침대에서 잠옷입고 빈둥빈둥 거리다가 소영이가 같이 가서 보자고 전화하는 바람에 후다닥 옷갈아 입고 간것뿐. 그것도 티켓없이 들어갈려고 중간 intermission에 몰래 들어갈려다가 걸려서 결국에 학생티켓 7불을 내고 들어가야 했었다;; 어쨌든지 들어가서 놀란것은 빈자리 찾기가 쉽지 않았다는것. 주로 할머니 할아버지들이었지만 그렇게 사람이 많이온걸 본건 처음이었다. TCC에서 공연도 해봤고 연주회도 몇번 가봐서 알지만 주로 뒤에 싼 자리로 구하고 앞에 빈자리 골라서 앉으면 됐었는데 그때는 정말 빈자리라곤 찾을수가 없었다. 결국에 앞에는 앉지 못하고 중간쯤에 자리를 겨우 구했지만 워낙 앞에 앉아서 뚤어지게 바라보며 듣는걸 좋아하는지라 별로 좋은자리는 아니였다. 하여간 그날 들은곡은 Tchaik violin concerto op.35. 태어나서 그런 연주는 처음이었다. 숨소리한번 내지못하고 들었다. 특히 마지막 movement는 굉장히 섬세하고 열정적인, 정말 곡이 끝나지 않기를 바랄정도였다. (아마 곡이 끝나지 않았으면 Josh는 쓰러지지 않았을까; 그정도로 대단했다.) 기립박수에 기립박수가 이어지고, 나도 한곡더 앙콜로 들려주길 간절히 바랬음에도 아마 도저히 힘들어서 앙콜은 못할거라고 생각했지만 (Tchaik은 괭장히 길다. 나같으면 보통 협주곡의 movement 하나정도 연주하고나면 지치는데, 전곡을 한번에 다한다는것은, 그것도 열정적으로 하고 지치지 않는다는것은 정말 대단한 스테미너다. 땀을 뻘뻘 흘리는것이 상당히 지쳐보이긴 했지만.) 놀랍게도 다시나와 앙콜을 해줬다. 앙콜곡은 Red violin곡중 하나인 Pope's concert. 보는순간 경직, 벌어진 입을 다물수가 없었다. 사람이 저렇게 연주할수도 있는거구나, 저런게 정말 가능하구나. 내가본중 최고의 virtuoso performance 였다. 평생 한번 볼수 있을까 말까한... 정말 거장들의 연주라는건 이런거라는걸 처음 느꼈다. 내 생애에 꼭 한번 다시 보고싶은 연주가 있다면 당연히 Josh Bell의 연주일거다. 만약 여행을하다가 그분이 연주를한다는 소식을 들으면 모든걸 팽게치고 들으러갈 정도로. 난 그순간부터 중독된듯이 그의 연주를 찾았고 그때의 기억을 잊지 안으려고 그의 Tchaik 씨디까지 샀다. (Tchaik 은 이번학기때 공연해버리는 바람에 리허설에 뭐에 너무많이 들어서 더이상 도저히 듣고싶은 생각이 들지 않고, 그 공연때의 기억도 안잊어 버릴라고 애씀에도 불구하고 어두운 무대와 그의 검은 옷, 그리고 그분 특유의 고개를 오케스트라쪽으로 돌리고 명상하는듯한 자세밖에는 아쉽게도 별 기억이 나지 않는다) 누구라도 그분을 들을 기회가 있으면 꼭 가서 들어보라고 권하고 싶다.

아 그리고 인터넷을 뒤지다가 발견한 재밌는 사실. 그의 연주에도 그렇지만 그의 외모에 혹한사람이 한둘이 아니다. 특히 여성분들-_-; 확실히 씨디에 보면 내가봐도 굉장히 미소년틱하게 잘생기게 나왔지만, 이제 나이도 40이 가까워지고, 인터뷰한거 보면 배도 좀 나온거 같고 나잇살인지 얼굴도 통통해지고 그랬던데, 사진, 확실히 사기다;;. 이번에산 씨디랑 Romance of Violin 커버에 나온 사진보고 놀랬다=_=; 헐리우드 매직이 좋긴 좋구나...;; 한 20년은 젊어보인다. 사진을 위해서 특별히 살을뺀게 아니라면, 사진사에게 존경을 표한다; 어쨌든지 죠시 아저씨, 투산에 한번더 와주시면 안될까요?? 이왕이면 U of A music school에도 좀..;;

Happy birthday to me

2006-03-23T17:23:00.000-07:00

I'm 20 as of today, for real, even though I've been 20 for about a month on legal documents... I got lots and lots of "Happy birthdays" :) but no present yet.. :( But that's ok, I'm actually really surprized how many people remembered it, thank you to all the people who wished me a happy birthday. It's kind of wierd, knowing that i'm actually 20, and not a "teen" anymore. I'm a real adult now. I've never really thought of myself as "child" or a "kid" except when I was in elementary school, and some people (actually a lot of people) thought of me as acting too mature (or in other words, "old people like" =_=+) for my age. And since I'm tutoring kids, the kids' parents treat me equal to them, like they would treat other adults they know. This is very important because hierachy in Korean culture is super important, and teachers are usually thought of as the most respected person for parents... because they believe the success of their children's life depends on the teachers. But since I don't think of them as my "equals", it's been a kind of weird and ackward... I bet they are just doing that to be polite, but mutual respect toward each other is a good thing, and I should get used to it by now. So yes, they actually bring me coffee instead of juice or milk (hehehe), and use formal language to me, which I guess is kind of normal thing to do for a college student. Anyways, I'm getting used to the sudden change in attitude of being looked as a kid (whether I thought of myself as one or not) and being looked as an adult. Some people I think will never think of me as an adult, like my family members. I do act quite irresponsibly at home, and I found myself (to my horror) acting quite childish during orchestra rehearsal last monday, just because I couldn't stand the menacing repetition of Hendel for two hours nonstop with 5 different conductor wannabes. Since people start looking at me as an adult (hopefully), I should act like one, and limit myself from behaving stupidly.... It'll take a lot more years and experiences before I can really look myself as a real adult though. And there are people out there who are just old but not really an "adult" yet, at least in my opinion..

I had slightly depressing lesson today, may be just because I've been only frustrated and desperate whenever I practiced Rondo. I think I'm probably the worst violin learning person/thing ever existed cuz it's only normal that people get better when they practice, and I'm apparently not able to do so. Sensee tried to show me again and again and I think I could somewhat do it at the end of the lesson time, but who knows I'll be able to actually play off the string by this week, this month, this year... Now I don't even have energy to get angry at myself. Ahh it should be "happy" birthday, not "Depression cycle hits again" birthday. I'll eat sushi today, so it won't matter. Nothing matters when it comes to sushi.

I'm so bored

2006-03-19T22:58:00.000-07:00

here's more personality tests, i'm should go to bed now

Your view on yourself:
You are down-to-earth and people like you because you are so straightforward. You are an efficient problem solver because you will listen to both sides of an argument before making a decision that usually appeals to both parties.

The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:
You are not looking merely for a girl/boyfriend - you are looking for your life partner. Perhaps you should be more open-minded about who you spend time with. The person you are looking for might hide their charm under their exterior.

Your readiness to commit to a relationship:
You are ready to commit as soon as you meet the right person. And you believe you will pretty much know as soon as you might that person.

The seriousness of your love:
You are very serious about relationships and aren't interested in wasting time with people you don't really like. If you meet the right person, you will fall deeply and beautifully in love.

Your views on education
Education is very important in life. You want to study hard and learn as much as you can.

The right job for you:
You're a practical person and will choose a secure job with a steady income. Knowing what you like to do is important. Find a regular job doing just that and you'll be set for life.

How do you view success:
You are afraid of failure and scared to have a go at the career you would like to have in case you don't succeed. Don't give up when you haven't yet even started! Be courageous.

What are you most afraid of:
You are concerned about your image and the way others see you. This means that you try very hard to be accepted by other people. It's time for you to believe in who you are, not what you wear.

Who is your true self:
You are full of energy and confidence. You are unpredictable, with moods changing as quickly as an ocean. You might occasionally be calm and still, but never for long.

color quiz

2006-03-19T22:17:00.000-07:00

Here's what it says about me:

Your Existing Situation
Imaginative and sensitive; seeking an outlet for these qualities--especially in the company of someone equally sensitive. Interest and enthusiasm are readily aroused by the unusual or the adventurous.
(Ok.. what does it mean by "unusual"?)

Your Stress Sources
Seeks independence and freedom from any restriction and therefore avoids obligations or anything which might prove hampering. She is being subjected to considerable pressure and wants to escape from it so that she can obtain what she needs, but tends to lack the necessary strength of purpose to succeed in this.
(yes, I'm stressed for sure)

Your Restrained Characteristics
Feels cut off and unhappy because of the difficulty in achieving the essential degree of cooperation and harmony which she desires.
(I do feel frustrated)

Your Desired Objective
Desires protection against anything which might exhaust or tire her. Seeks a life of security and physical ease, free from any problem or disturbance.
(very true, but doesn't anybody?)

Your Actual Problem
Fears that her independence will be threatened or severely restricted unless she protects herself from outside influence. Does not want to be bothered.
(My "actual" problem....hmm..)

Your Actual Problem #2
Failure to establish herself in a manner consonant with her own high opinion of her worth, combined with the continued effort to prove herself with inadequate resources, have resulted in considerable stress. Tries to escape from these excessive demands on her meager reserves by adopting a defensive attitude in which she refuses to be committed, or to be involved in further unpleasantness.
(I'm defensive, bit more than I want myself to be...)

Hmmmm..

Blessed...

2006-03-19T20:47:00.000-07:00

젠장=_= 원래는 주위에 신경써주는 친구들이 있어서 복도많다라고 쓸라고 했는데 쓰다가 보니우울모드에 빠져버렸다-_-+ 망할. 망할.

Took out my wisdom teeth today..

2006-03-16T16:49:00.000-07:00

I took out my two upper wisdom teeth today. The extraction process was amazingly simple, and contrary to popular belief it wasn't bad at all. The dentist was a really nice guy, and told me every step of things he was going to do to me. Anesthesia process took a lot longer than the extraction process, since all he did was basically push the teeth out (I think). I would've never guessed it would be that simple... and surprising thing was, my wisdom teeth were huge!! They were like inch long each. The dentist asked me if I want to take them with me ("who knows? May be tooth fairy will give you a dollar for it"), but I just looked at them instead. They were bloody, pink, and mean looking... I guess the bigger it is, the more wisdom you have.. :P

I'm still under the effect of Anesthesia (I think the doctor said it's Nodacane or Novacane, which I remembered from working in pharmacy. I believe it's under narcotic substances that you really had to take care in checking them out..), since my right side of mouth is still tingly and my tongue feels weird. It's been almost three hours since my teeth has been pulled out.. I still have some bleeding, but I think it's getting less. I'm changing the gauze like every 15 minutes, which makes me kind of worried about them running out... also, how am I suppose to eat with two gauzes sitting in my mouth?? I guess I'll have to wait till the bleeding stops, but then what if it doesn't stop till late at night? I guess I'll just starve.. better then eating bloody food... yuck. Anyways I hope the anesthesia doesn't ware off soon, cuz it's been nice not being able to feel any pain yet...

Plant a seed

2006-03-15T10:29:00.000-07:00

I planted 10 Geranium seeds yesterday, I hope at least one comes out... The instruction said to plant them in a "seed starting soil" but I couldn't fined one so I just planted them in "miracle-gro". May be it'll require a miracle to grow them. I checked the flower pot this morning and nothing changed... Of course, it's only been a day.

So why Geranium? Well, my friend in Ochem class told me about what a bad year it's going to be for people who were born in the year of Tiger, and the way to prevent the bad lucks is having a red flower in my room. So I went home and checked Korean almanac (over internet) with my sister and checked for my "luck" this year... and found it to be the worst ever. What it said about me was "A small ship is lost in a storming big sea, how can one expect it to arrive at its port safely?". Basically, nothing I try to accomplish will come true, I'll be very sick, and so just "empty" my mind and try to be patient. Oh, and it also said "beware of 'opposite sex'". There goes my future bf if I get one. I sorta freaked out cause this year's very important to me.. I'll be applying to school of pharmacy this year, but it says nothing I want will come true!! (Well it said if I want something really really bad, I might be able to get it). But then my another good friend Pen told me not to believe in that stuff because some people have bad years and some people have good years, and it doesn't matter what somebody says about it because it's all in your perspective. And I think it's true. I was sort of trying to make it as my excuse for bad things that will happen to me, but nothing really bad happened to me yet. I guess it's like a chicken and egg theory, bad things happen because it's bad year or you think it's going to be a bad year and so bad things happen.

Anyways, I got attracted to the idea of having a red flower, more like a symbol of hope. (Does that mean if all the flowers die, my hope dies too???) I wanted something that I can take care of this year, and watch it grow from my care. It'll be like Little Prince's rose. So grow my tiny seeds, grow!! And show me some flowers!!!

Ahh violin, why won't you work with me...

2006-03-13T22:07:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, I'm getting really frustrated and annoyed trying to play Rondo Capriccioso. It's not an easy piece, I know it, and I also know that I shouldn't be so frustrated since I know it's a difficult piece. I've played difficult pieces before and over the years I've learned to be patient when practicing, but this time it's little different. There's this one spot that's making me want to throw my bow (which I did once few years ago.. I threw it on my bed... and it jumped up really high so I swore I'd never do it again), it's like a bouncing thing with my bow that I just can't do! My teacher tried to teach me how to do it for like 40 minutes (almost the whole lesson time) and afterwards he got so tired and almost fell back on his chair... I felt sorry for him because if I'm this frustrated, who knows how much frustrated he can be. Arg. Things like this make me depressed. I'm no good. It won't matter whether I practice more or not. I just won't get it. I have no talent. I don't know why I still persist on playing violin. Heck, yeah like I can really "play" violin. Compared to others, I suck. I don't get things like other people. I should quit.....

But then if I just give up on it like that, that would not be me. In addition to getting frustrated, I also get angry at myself. I know better then to give up, and because I'm so mad that I can't do the stupid thing I'll practice and practice and practice. But the thing is, I think I'm actually getting worse after so much repetition in practicing. It's like I could mimic it somewhat at the beginning, my teacher tells me I'm not doing it right, we spend tons of time trying to make me do what he can do so naturally, I practice at home while trying not to pull my hair out, and I still can't do it. Now I can't even "mimic" what I was doing in the first place. It's gotten worse. My bow won't even bounce for me. I'm afraid I'm practicing it wrong and actually accumulating bad habits that I'll have to fix later on, but there is no one to check with! I'm on break now and I won't see my teacher for two weeks!!
Aaaah it's not like I can't do it cuz I didn't practice!! I did! A lot! What's the matter with me!?? How on earth did other kids learn how to do it!! Am I the only person having this problem? God, other students are so much better than me, I only make myself look stupid trying to keep up with it. I try and try and it's no good. erg. (and here goes the depression cycle again). I might be thinking too hard on the mechanism. May be I shouldn't try so hard. But then if I don't try, how can I do it???

This kinda reminds me of when I was learning how to spiccato... I can do it somewhat now but back then I used to get so frustrated with it.. I got so angry at myself I swore that I'll learn how to do this !&*%($# thing if it's the last thing I do before I die. Ugh violin, you should be the last thing that gives me stress..

Who's a sexy boy??

2006-03-12T15:26:00.000-07:00

Doori is the sexy boy!! (I heard an old lady saying "whose a sexy boy?" to her dog again and again at a grooming shop, and it sorta became contagious...) Anyways, this is doori the dog, here looking more like a sleepy fat bear. He is a really good looking dog though, really.

So...for the first (ok, second) time...

2006-03-12T14:31:00.000-07:00

So yes. I've decided to have a blog now. I actually had a real nice blog on MSN spaces, but never wrote a thing because... because... (I'm lazy? Couldn't think of anything to write? Too self conscious?) ehh...why don't we just stick to "cuz I'm too busy". But my good friend(Gesuntheight!!!) successfully persuaded me to actually "use" a blog so here it is.
Dear my Korean friends, don't hate me for writing in english. Dear my korean and english speaking friends, don't laugh. Dear my non-korean english speaking friends and peers... 하~하~ 너넨 한국말쓰면 못읽는다~~ ;;;

Hhmm hmm anyways. It doesn't really matter who reads it, since I've decided to use it as a tool to organize my own thoughts about things. And sometimes I do want to write about some things, it's just that I have never been able to make myself to actually do it. Yes, I'll say it again, I actually want to write sometimes. I'll talk about my annoyance about "writing" later but...
But yes, I do think that having a blog is a good idea.. I can practice english, let people know what's going on around me and stuff. I should write in Korean too, it's just that I seem to forget some of the spelling stuff and yes, it's embarrassing. But I'll try. We'll see.

I'll try to write as often as possible but can't guarantee it because I'm so busy these days (I'll write about that another time also) and I don't think I'll have time for writing once school starts again... Writing eats away my time... sigh