jongmini's Xanga

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:01:35 GMT

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

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:10:32 GMT

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.

---
i've decided to take down her post because i felt that it's a very personal thing that she shared.

starbuckin'

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:08:11 GMT

@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.)

enjoy with a cup of tea and a digestive cookie

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:30:22 GMT

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.

the mess we live in

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:15:57 GMT

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?

o baby

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 06:54:42 GMT

my good friends' baby boy came into the world yesterday. i got to visit them at the maternity ward and for some odd reason it was an out of body experience. my friend jung has been sharing all the different emotions he's been going thru during lisa's pregnancy but for me it was an odd experience to not be able to relate with the stuff that was going thru his head. of course, as a single guy i don't know what being married is like but being a dad (or a mom), is even unfathomable to me. what is it like? so the whole time i was at the hospital visiting the brand new proud parents and getting acquainted with the new baby, i didn't really say much because i was just trying to process everything.
i think it's a wonderful thing to be married (or so i hear) but i think it's even more of a complex blessing to have a child of you own. i can't imagine what that feels like. all the joy mixed with the responsibility of caring for this little helpless baby.

my friends were in good spirits. they were joyful to know that the baby had finally come. but i know that soon it'll be too much for them. all the sleepless nights, dirty diapers, endless banter and the feeling of life transformed to care for this little guy.

it makes me wonder what mary and joseph felt when baby jesus first came into this world. they were so young, away from their family and on the road. what joy. what burden. how did they feel as a brand new parents. sometimes i think about how vulnerable jesus was, first as a baby then as a little boy. i wonder how much poop he crapped. were the children in the neighborhood mean to him? did he have a mean sibling who took advantage of him? how many nights did mary and joseph have to ruin to appease this little baby. if we christians believe that marriage is a glimpse of our relationship with jesus, then maybe being a parent must be a glimpse of what God felt as he sent his son to this earth as a little baby. a helpless baby.

so as i was looking at this little baby boy desmond it made me think about the brand new parents and the new experiences they'll have to go thru to raise this little guy. i didn't envy them at first but perhaps they will grow into good parents they are capable of being. and hopefully understand God a little better. i'm by no means saying unmarried and childless single guy like me cannot fathom his heart for the spirit helps us do that. but there's something totally absolutely utterly different about holding a baby. holding your own son. so bless you my friends. bless you desmond. and thank you God for sending us Jesus as a little baby. merry christmas.

Friday, December 05, 2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:29:08 GMT

i want to live in a city that has a great public transportation system.
and when i get old i want to live near the woods where i can take a walk in the midst of trees.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 04:06:52 GMT

[end of year personal project update]

-turkey bowl. well i'm glad that after all these years i dusted off my cleats and participated. i got to run the defense and i realized that i've brought some solid zone defense to our overall defensive scheme but i've made some mistakes by not rushing the quaterback more. we didn't do well as some of us had hoped but it was good. and thankfully no injuries. : )

-turkey dinner. after hearing all the buzz about brining the turkey, i tried brining my own 14 pounder. i decided to jump on the brine band wagon last minute but i was able to create a brine concoction made up of just sea salt, brown sugar and garlic. i've roasted the turkey for 3 hrs and 15 mins in 375F heat and to my own amazement, the turkey came out really juicy and tender. i give the brining method two juicy drumsticks up. hosting some of our cousins was lots of fun too. we capped the night off with a blockbuster run for "Baby Mama" by Tina Fey. haha. good times.

-i got a new camera! well it's an old used camera i got from eBay but it'll do. it's a Nikon D50. give me some time to play around with it. i to hope to be back to my picture taking form soon.

-and with the announcement that the US economy is officially in the recession i've made yet another purchase. spending money isn't the smartest thing to do right now but i figure i've been planning the camera purchase for a while and was saving up for it so it's justified. the second purchase was in the works for couple of weeks and i hope this purchase will pay for itself in the near future. i got a new bike! well again it's an old bike from craigslist but it's a beauty. here's to lowering my carbon footprint. i'll be hitting the road soon with this baby. i hope to convert it to a fixed gear bike one day.

-GRE in exactly one week. GRE words are my friends.

Monday, December 01, 2008

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:08:20 GMT

from memory...
abeyance: suspended action
abstemious: crap
aver: to declare with confidence, assert
flag: to droop
flout: to mock (mnemonic: sounds like a fish (flounder) saying F U. whatever works)
inured: crap
mendacious: dishonest (mnemonic: eva mendez lying to me habitually)
obdurate: crap
obsequious: eager to please (mnemonic: my friend jung who sarcastically or not remarked that that is him trying to please his pregnant wife)
obviate: to make unnecessary
salubrious: healthful (mnemonic: dunno why but this word reminds me of saber-tooth tiger and for some reason that reminds me of "healthful) : p
striated: grooved
sanction: to approve
truculence: ferocious, aggressive (mnemonic: a big mack truck)
vituperative: crap i hate this
welter: a turmoil

crap.

GRE words are my friends

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:35:02 GMT

out of hundreds of great football movies of all time, one of my favorite for some odd reason has to be "necessary roughness" from the early 90s. "necessary roughness" isn't all that great of a movie but i remember this movie well because it's the first football movie i watched after coming to the US at the tender age of 12. i had just fallen in love with this new american sport and this movie was like my first love. i don't remember much about this movie except for a black wide receiver who had the speed to make him a hot nfl prospect but couldn't make a catch to save his life. he wasn't even one of the main characters in the movie but i remember an advice he had received before a crucial game. he is told to repeat to himself "the ball is my friend" as he ran that route. 'the ball is my friend. the ball is my friend. the ball is my friend.' he repeats to himself as the movie cuts to a predictable slow-mo edit. the football is in the air. a perfect spiral. then it cuts to the receiver. he looks up, finds the ball and reaches out. 'the ball is my friend'. the catch is made and everyone lives happily ever after. that's as much as i remember. haha.

i am that guy. and i'm repeating to myself "GRE words are my friends. GRE words are my friends. GRE words are my friends."

i'm that receiver. i'm running down the side line. here are words that i've been fumbling with.

abeyance
abstemious
aver
flag: v. droop; grow feeble (?)
flout
inured
mendacious
obdurate
obsequious
obviate
salubrious
striated
sanction: v. approve; ratify (i thought it meant the opposite??? like economic sanction on iran and so-forth)
truculence
vituperative
welter

well there's more but i'll spare you. so far i've done well. i've pretty much memorized the Kaplan list of 240 words. not bad. next i'm moving on to Barron's list. GRE words are my friends.