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SubscriptionsSites I Read
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| i need to bring back my xanga. or just hop over to wordpress like all the other hipsters. not that i am one.
singapore here i come. | | |
| life and death isn't something you think about much when you are young. most big life events young ppl face are dating, break-ups, marriage and so on. it's weird living and hanging out with college kids because it makes it easier to forget some of the things i've learned over the years (whoa i sound like an old man here) and rather focus on things they might be focused on such as tests, grades, being popular/accepted, dating/crushes. while i must admit i worry about some of the things i just mentioned but life has its way of smacking you in the forehead. doh!
i have been reminded that life isn't necessarily about these temporary things. just a few days ago, a korean-american berkeley student was shoot and killed. i didn't know him but i know bunch of ppl who do. many of them will be going to a funeral for the first time in their lives. i've been fortunate enough not to lose close ones in my life thus far but they will come.
another friends of ours lost their unborn baby. i love these guys so much and i remember being SO excited for them when they told me. i've known few couples who went through this, but this one particularly is hitting me hard. i want to share an entry my friend wrote to her baby when she found out that she was pregnant. i'm deeply moved beyond words. i haven't asked them if i can post this here but i hope they forgive me. and i hope you will pray for them.
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i've decided to take down her post because i felt that it's a very personal thing that she shared.
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| @starbucks near home.
this place has been my sanctuary for the last few months while being at home. well it's more like my office since i come here to use the internet and more importantly the desk. i don't know why i didn't buy a desk at home. i could really save money and do all my job searching at home sitting in my room. but alas it keeps me sane to get out of the house even tho this starbucks is about a mile away from home.
come to think of it i have a funny relationship with starbucks around the world.
@lebanon we didn't have internet at our apartment mainly cuz it was so freakin' expensive. so i used to go down to starbucks in the hamra area (a college + shopping area similar to westwood i guess) and purchase the internet provided by starbucks. it was bit more expensive than other free internet cafes but when "free" is synonymous to "death-defying slow", it's worth lebanese pounds. trust me. i swear it's a good material for a high-speed internet commercial.
internet was important for us expats in a faraway land not only for our daily facebook consumption but more importantly the "free" skype phone calls to loved ones and not so loved ones. i remember this one conversation with the latter grouping. it was around 10pm and starbucks was pretty full. i was on a 1-800 phone call with a lady from my bank back in philadelphia because i found that my atm card stopped working. it was already awkward to sit at starbucks with one of those big operator headphone on my head when she asked me to spell out some personal information for the sake of identity check. i spoke thru the wee microphone my account number, that three digit code on the back of atm cards and even my SSN. after a second of delay (quite normal) she asks me to repeat it, a bit louder this time. so i repeat myself and give her the string of numbers that proves to her that i am, indeed, me. these banks should invest in a voice-recognition software or something, i thought. then she apologizes and asks me to repeat my SSN one more time. i look up and my roommate who was sitting across the table from me is trying not to laugh because by this time i'm speaking up loud enough for all to hear. there must have been at least 10 people near by who could have heard me spell out the precious string of numbers that makes me who i am, according to the world of credits and banks. i tell you, the fact that my identity hasn't been stolen is a proof that God is good. knock on wood.
thank God starbucks didn't go cheap with plastic tables. starbucks should upgrade me Herman Miller style ergonomic desk chair for all the money (dollars, lebanese pounds, jordanian dinars, wons, british pounds) i've spent there. sigh.
(is it sacrilege to say "God is good" and then knock on wood? haha.)
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| i don't know why i enjoy british film so much.
when i watched "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" back in college, i could barely understand what many of the characters were saying let alone what was going on. i don't think it helped that i was still massively jet-lagged after my first cross-atlantic flight to the UK, but i thoroughly enjoyed this "new" genre (well new for me anyways) even more because i was experiencing the british culture all at once.
i've been a big fan of british film since. well i'm not sure if i can claim i love ALL british film but something about british humor that just gets me. there's other guy ritchie movies such as "Snatch" which was pretty decent and "layer cake" few years later was made in guy ritchies style. layer cake wasn't that great but it helped daniel craig land his james bond roll later so it was worth watching.
i think british humor, at least on film i've seen, is quite vulgar but witty. it's not your dumb and dumber or zoolander but simon pegg doesn't disappoint. in fact, i've become quite a fan of simon pegg even though i think ben stiller, will farrell and jack black are much funnier (jack black in nacho is hands down the best). i'm probably biased toward british comedy and simon pegg's "Shawn of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz" are true laugh-out-loud, knee-slapping kind of movie for me. i've recently watched "how to lose friends and alienate people" which wasn't his best work but its still simon pegg being him.
besides the big names like simon pegg and guy ritchie i really enjoyed "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Billy Elliot" and "Waking Ned Devine".
of course there's the classic Monty Python series. i especially recommend "Life of Brian" to all religious folks out there like me who will find it rather uncomfortable laughing out loud at jokes that are borderline sacrilegious.
i still haven't figured out why i enjoy british comedy so much and perhaps i'm one of the few americans or non-brit who actually enjoy this crap. but if you haven't seen some of these movies i say give it a shot. and let me know if you know of other great british film, comedy or not. cuz these days all i have is time and i can use some dry humor. | | |
| sometimes i think to myself, "the world we live in is just a big mess". i get discouraged.
i know its a pretty depressing way to start the new year with that thought but i couldn't help it.
there's so much stuff going on right now. gaza/israel (just heard about rockets from lebanon), oakland shooting, washington flood, the economy and so on. might as well not read/watch the news. turn that damn thing off.
i don't know when it was i started to open my eyes to the issues around the world. i vaguely remember seeing on the news the images brought from berlin when the wall fell. i must have been ten or something. i only recall sub-dollar gas prices as a result of the first gulf war. neither didn't really mean much to me. i didn't drive then nor did i know much about the gulf. i do remember the LA riots and the events that led up to that. i was directly effected when the economy turned after the dot-com bubble. not having a job sucked back then. it still does. but its like over the years my sensor for pain near and far just keep maturing. and sometimes i don't like it.
i'd rather not know. but numb to it. maybe that's how i can be happy. be numb to people's pain. but that's not the intention of the Big Guy above. i'm not saying i have an especially keen sense of empathy than others but thru life experience i've had the chance to see it up close. and it sure is ugly.
sometimes it is that ugly face that makes the face of hope evermore beautiful. and i don't want to forget that beauty. how can i? and that is what drives me from turning away from the ugliness of human sin. sometimes pain makes you realize that there's pleasure. knowing the utter depth of sin makes you realize the height his holiness. and makes you want to long for it more. how long?
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