I'm watching a lot of sad movies lately. Not what the doctor prescribed.

Thought of the Day: Pity.
Song of the Day: Epik High-유서

I was on a computer fast for one week but actually failed after staying home all day on a Saturday. The funny thing is, I wasn't doing it for any special cause, but I still found myself feeling guilty for failing with only two days to go. Oh well. But one thing that I learned from this fast was that I love to use my computer for emails, blogs, and music because they are the sources of my times of reflection. Whenever I came home from a long day's work, my substitutes for my computer were my journal and ipod. I usually write in my journal about once every few months. But this week, I must have written in it at least three times. I guess that's what I would do if I didn't have a computer. Anyways, it's good to be back.

Literature

I've been enjoying Life of Pi these days. I think Yann Martel is a terrific writer who really knows how to use his words well:

“To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures to people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you.”

Isn't that beautiful?

Movies

So the main reason why I broke my computer fast was because I wanted to finish the two Korean movies that my dad had gotten for me for my birthday so that I can send them back home with my mom. The first movie is called 손애보 or "Asako in Ruby Shoes." It's about two different lives that are very lonely. Gotta love them lonely movies, right? Totally loved the girl too.


The second movie I watched was 내 마음의 풍금. I've grown a special heart for Korean teacher movies just because I've "been there, done that." I'm also a sucker for unrequited love movies. If you've never taught in Korea before, you probably won't enjoy this.

Music


It should have rained today.

Thought of the Day: Asako.
Song of the Day: 숙명 가야금 연주단-Let It Be

2:13 AM - Mosquito rapes Phil over and over and over again.

Thought of the Day: 추신
Song of the Day: Weezer-Pork and Beans

Imma do the things that i wanna do
I ain't got a thing to prove to you



Gotta love that drummer!

Thought of the Day: Aspirin.
Song of the Day: Weezer-Pork and Beans

1 Kings 19:4-8-He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, Lord," he said. "Take my life; I am not better than my ancestors." Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep. All at once an angel touched him and said, "Get up and eat." He looked around, and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again. The angel of the LORD came back a second time and touched him and said, "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you." So he got up and ate and drank.

Just the other night, I was chatting with Dinko who has been sick for some time now. I told him I couldn't even begin to imagine what it would feel like to be sick right now with the hot weather. Well, guess who decided to join Dinko? Whenever others are sick, I always tell them to take plenty of fluids, get much rest, and EAT! But now that I'm the one who's sick, I find it so burdensome to take care of myself by looking after my meals and whatnot.

Yesterday at work, I was pretty much repeating the words of Elijah, "I have had enough, Lord. Take my life." With all the stress of work and illness, I really just wanted to give it all up. One of my coworkers has been having many obstacles with getting a visa, and she often proclaims, "I give up!" Last night, I was speaking with a friend who has been having it tough and has, in a sense, "given up."

Friends, if you are having pains and inconveniences in your life, let us be encouraged that our Lord calls us to "get up and eat." He will help us to keep going through this heinous journey called life. Are you eating your spiritual food everyday?

Thought of the Day: 좌절금지
Song of the Day: David Crowder Band-All Creatures Of Our God And King (No. 2)

"My eyes feel like they're gonna bleed
Dried up and bulging out my skull
My mouth is dry
My face is numb"

Do you guys know that one song by Green Day called "Brain Stew?" Well, I've been listening to it for years, but the lyrics just recently made so much sense to me. I was listening to it the other day, and the words were like poetry to my insomniac mind. If there's one thing that Cognitive Psychology and Korea has taught me, it's the importance of sleep. Lately, I've been having a lot on my mind (which robbed many hours of sleep), but one of my biggest issues was recently cleared up. But the amazing thing was that I felt my eyes begin to grow heavy and my body long for sleep as soon as my 고민 was resolved.

Thorns truly cause us to rest on Christ's power. But thank God that He also removes them according to His will. I think I'll be the one with the "good night" tonight.

Thought of the Day: 교회 아줌마
Song of the Day: Sara Groves-He's Always Been Faithful

Here is a picture of my favorite pencil/pen that I received as a gift from my dad in high school. I finally began to use it for work some time last year since this awesome tool not only functions as a mechanical pencil but also works as a black and red pen. Can you get any more perfect? It's especially helpful for grading papers and writing homework sheets for work. Anyways, maybe about a year ago, one of my students gave me another one of these pens as a gift just out of the blue for no particular reason. I gladly accepted it for two are always better than one. Then a couple of months ago, our EM members received the same exact pen as a gift for our three year anniversary. If two are better than one, then surely three must be better than two, right?

Two weeks ago, I lost my first pen at work. Rather, someone took it from me and did not bother to ask if anyone's awesome pen was missing. One week ago, I dropped my second pen in the sanctuary while packing my stuff up after service. That's two gone. Now I only have my PCL English Ministry version to work with. Although it's no big deal, I wonder why God allowed two of my favorite pens to disappear one week after another. I guess sometimes you just have to lose some good things in your life in order to gain some things that are better. I wonder what I'll gain this time.

Thought of the Day: Bethel.
Song of the Day: Sixpence None The Richer-Breathe

I like this picture.

Thought of the Day: Julia.
Song of the Day: Jimmy Eat World-The World You Love

"Matilda had never once stopped to think about where Miss Honey might be living. She had always regarded her purely as a teacher, a person who turned up out of nowhere and taught at school and then went away again. Do any of us children, she wondered, ever stop to ask ourselves where our teachers go when school is over for the day? Do we wonder if they live alone, or if there is a mother at home or a sister or a husband?"
-Matilda

Thought of the Day: Polysemy.
Song of the Day: Lynyrd Skynyrd-Free Bird

How do you make a happy family? Even my mom's side of the family isn't Christian, but they have more love than many Christian families that I know. Husbands, please love your wives! Wives, please respect your husbands!

Thought of the Day: Glasses.
Song of the Day: Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) The Speech Song (Graduation-1999)

One of my best friends, Justin, sent me this in an email, and I found it to be rather encouraging and insightful.

Kurt Vonnegut’s commencement address at MIT

Note: It was actually written by a columnist in Chicago, which quickly turned into a “Kurt Vonnegut MIT commencement speech.”



Ladies and Gentlemen of the graduating class:



Wear sun screen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sun screen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.



Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.



Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.



Do one thing every day that scares you.



Sing.



Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.



Floss.



Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.



Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.



Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old blank statements.



Stretch.



Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.



Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they are gone.



Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary.



Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either.



Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.



Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.



Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.



Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.



Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.



Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.



Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on.



Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.



Travel.



Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.



Respect your elders.



Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.



Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.



Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.



But trust me on the sun screen.

Thought of the Day: 내성적인
Song of the Day: Jewelry-One More Time

"We're always going and going and going, and never asking where. Did you ever hear of having more than you wanted? So that you couldn't want anything else and then started looking for something else to want? It seems like we're always searching for something to satisfy us, and never finding it. Maybe if we could lose our cool we could."
Cherry from The Outsiders

Thought of the Day: 불변증
Song of the Day: YDB-사랑할거야

One interesting thing about our church is that there's a baseball stadium right across the street. As a result, we often hear loud cheering and music while we're trying to have Bible study. For example, someone will be sharing about their thoughts on the sermon and all of a sudden you'll hear, "BABY ONE MORE TIME!" But I have to admit, Korean baseball fans are really fun. Gotta love them balloons.

Thought of the Day: Doosan!
Song of the Day: Jewelry-모두 다 쉿!

"Lord, he loved to draw. Animals, mostly. Not regular animals like Miss Bessie or the chickens, but crazy animals with problems-"
-from Bridge to Terebithia

Man, if there's one thing God really did not bless me with, it's art. A few Saturdays ago, I played Cranium at a leaders' retreat. Although my team lost miserably, I take pride in the fact that I was able to make Mike laugh so hard with my ridiculous drawing of a shrimp. I have never seen him laugh like that before, and I think I never will ever again. All you artists out there are amazing!

Thought of the Day: iPod
Song of the Day: The Alkaholiks-Daaam!

I had a fantastic three day holiday.

Friday-last class cancelled (I literally played in my head: "Give thanks to the Lord for He is good!")

Saturday-꽃피는 봄이오면 trip.







































































Sunday-Chung/Cho family dinner and successful reformat.

Monday-

I'm one of you guys now...except for facebook.

Thought of the Day: USB

If you've never gone noraebang with your parents, I'd highly recommend it. It's pictures like this that really makes me want to get a 디카.




Enoch, Daniel Cho, and I had no idea this movie would be in German. However, it turned out to be ok, and we were able to understand most of it, even with our poor Korean subtitle skills. The kid in the movie is a musical genius in real life! It's movies like this that really makes me want to learn piano again.

Thought of the Day: a320raid.sys
Song of the Day: Rivers Of Babylon

Another catchy Korean song.



I found out yesterday that my high school student (that badmouths me) passed all of the auditions and is training to be a singer for YG Entertainment. I was secretly jealous.

Thought of the Day: Wonjang.
Song of the Day: Epik High-One

I've never even heard of 금촌, but it seems like the place to be (thanks, Jae).

The other day, one of my high school students said some mean things in Korean about my appearance to all of the girls in our class. It was pretty humiliating to hear them all laugh while I had to feign ignorance. The next day, my slanderer complained to me in front of a bunch of elementary school boys about how they were calling her fat and ugly (Assah!).
One of those kids likes to headbutt my body whenever he gets the chance. That same day, he was headbutting my back but accidentally made contact with my elbow really hard. That was painfully funny.

Lately, I haven't been able to study any of my Korean vocabulary because I've been bogged down with so many books to read for work. However, there are some benefits to reading some good literature. For example, Hatchet had some good words to chew on:

“He did not know how long it took, but later he looked back on this time of crying in the corner of the dark cave and thought of it as when he learned the most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn’t work. It wasn’t just that it was wrong to do, or that it was considered incorrect. It was more than that-it didn’t work. When he sat alone in the darkness and cried and was done, was all done with it, nothing had changed. His leg still hurt, it was still dark, he was still alone and the self-pity had accomplished nothing.”

I've also been thoroughly enjoying a book called The Good Earth. There's one part where Wang Lung talks to his daughter about the pains of her bound feet:

"and my mother said I was not to weep aloud because you are too kind and weak for pain and you might say to leave me as I am, and then my husband would not love me even as you do not love her."

This book has taught me that Chinese people have had it tough too. The interesting thing is that the author, Pearl S. Buck, was a white American who grew up in China for many years, which allows her to write beautifully yet with accurate cultural and historical knowledge. Strongly recommended.

Finally, I was able to watch an awesome German movie called "The Lives of Others" earlier tonight. It's been a long time since I was impressed by a movie's story and message. Although my Korean isn't being stimulated these days, I am learning and growing through the "lives of others." But one interesting thing that Mike said in small group was that "you are your own best testimony" or something along those lines. 참 신기합니다.

Thought of the Day: Retreat.
Song of the Day: Utada Hikaru-Flavor Of Life (Ballad Version)

Cherry blossoms!

AKA popcorn trees.




Happiest couple in the world.

Thought of the Day: The three S's.
Song of the Day: A Whole New World

I had the most awkward conversation class yesterday. Angelo came into class about 30 minutes into our class and said that he needed to ask a personal question to Hahn. Angelo asked me and Stephen to just continue talking on our own while he began to chew Hahn out about some problem that had happened in their work meeting. The funny thing is that they were still speaking in their broken English the entire time! Stephen and I were trying to talk about the advantages of 청계천 while Angelo was huffing and puffing away about Hahn's miscommunication about some vital information. Mind you, this is all happening in the same room at the same table.

I like this picture because it accurately describes how I felt throughout those long 5 minutes.

My student would kill me if he found out that I had this picture. Say hi to everyone, David.

Thought of the Day: The Good Earth.
Song of the Day: Radiohead-Karma Police