i quit gossip news a while ago.
i used to keep up with it pretty regularly at some point.
and just like quitting cigarettes, at one point, i was hating the act while doing it.

at another point, i just accepted that i liked stories about beautiful people.
how amazing that one's looks can have such power over one's life.
how for some people... their looks is ALL THEIR LIFE.

but yeah.. that excuse didnt last long. fact is. it was totally useless and it didnt deserve a minute of my life.
maybe unless the story itself is interesting.

and now.. here i am.. spending a lot of my time.. on facebook.

of course, facebook is not a total waste of my time.
i keep updated on my friends.. and interact with people that i would otherwise never talk to.

but some part of  me feels like.. i'd feel more free without it.

weird.

anyway. i've been reading 1984. pretty slowly i might add. (playing a bit of super mario brothers as well.)
the book.. sometimes gets me depressed.

during the orientation, one of the questions asked was:

Identify someone who has provided something to help you grow in depth of feeling, character, or moral or ethical integrity, or who has helped you develop a deeper commitment to your values.

fact is.. that question to me was too specific to me so i decided to understand it as:

Identify someone who has provided something to help you grow into the side of you that you are proud to be.

i raised my hand to share my answer and i started saying:

"when i was 8, my ballet teacher saw that i needed love and attention (given that my parents were at work until late most of the time), so they picked me up and took me in..
It was a time when my parents were constantly fighting and they showed me a wonderful side to marriage. a side where they enjoyed each other's company..."

then i felt tears coming up and my voice started to crack and i couldnt really talk anymore..

the instructor probably picked that up and asked me some questions and tried to move on.

i was thinking maybe others had picked it up too.. or maybe not.

whatever.

fact is.. i really wanted to say.. my godparents are a big part of who i am. a big part of how i can be so confident in life. a big part of providing the love and attention that a young girl needed.  i just couldnt get anything straight out of my mouth cuz i got too emotional..

so anyway, here are some pics from ed's birthday:

ed has a habit of expressing his adoration as a "pose" for a picture.

their usual pose:

with patrick, owner of their favorite buffet restaurant. (my favorite as well.)

some serenading~

the sweetest blurry picture.

can you make it ed???

all together now~~

enjoying some chocolate buttermilk cake. (i'm glad it looked a lot like the chocolate buttermilk cake that i had made.. i always thought i messed it up.. but no, that's the color of buttermilk cake.)

chinese fortune for ms. arlene:

her following orders: PUSH!

training for mentoring involved some blatant contradictions.

ie.

-honesty is IMPORTANT. but, lie at these times...
-be personal. but, don't get personal.

funny thing is.. i understand why they exist.
i understand that i wont know until i face these issues that bring up such contradictions.

i'm very excited to meet my mentee.
she will be from brooklyn or staten island.
both of which are pretty far from where i am..

i'm trying to remember how i was back in high school. remember what i thought of 26 year olds..
remember the things i'd never dare say to adults... remember what advice i could have used looking back..

here is a toast to the start!

so i'm really glad my computer problem was the power supply.
would have sucked if i lost anything.

it's so nice to be on my computer again.. and not a laptop.

i just like my computers immobile.

shuddap.

i have no idea what the hell i want in life.
talking gets me nowhere lately.

words.. are useless.

i feel like this is a road to nowhere.

anyway. that's everyday stuff.

im glad we'll finally have a president that we dont think is a retard.

i need help.

i totally did not know it was my mom's birthday yesterday... thank god the bakery is open till 11:00pm in palisades park.

it's the second time i had to get a call from korea to be reminded.

i came home at around 10:30pm... feeling like a horrible daughter.

we ate some cake and chit chatted.

just when i was feeling glad that we spent some time together..

the mccain/obama speech was on and i had to tell my mom to talk to me later.

ugh.

i need to sit down and write my own self help book.

nobody can help me.. but myself.

every halloween, since about.. middle school or so.. i've always wanted to be april o'neil.

well.. at 26, i finally fulfilled my dream.

april before the hair cut:

after the hair cut:

it was pretty awesome.

sunday before yuta's birthday...

i invited him to explore mohonk with me:

the mild hikers.

i wanted to fly~

good shot.

from the sky top:

named benches on the cliff.

we took a nap next to the cliff.

beautiful shades of yellow and green.

happy birthday yuta.

i've been away..

dont shun me.. i think i might have fallen into the terse, convenient ways of facebook...
but i really just wanted to upload all the pictures from my hong kong trip..
and link the albums after i write my first blog post-trip..

but..

1. it's been really busy since i got back..
2. every night, after all the busy, i'd just.. rather hang/work out a little bit.
3. so..  pictures are not up yet..
4. but i just couldnt wait to write on xanga.

sigh.. i think i just miss xanga too much to wait.

i never had so many pictures to upload from a trip. i mean, sometimes i wonder.. how do photographers do it?
with the power of digital cameras... you can take SO MANY pictures...
but yet.. it just makes it that much harder to find the one you WANT.  you have such short attention spans to attend to.. the right picture is so important..

i suppose it's only natural.. you get a large quantity of good pictures.. and then your standard of a "great" picture gets higher and higher..

so yeah, it's hard to organize pictures.. sort them in a way to best express my trip. best way i want to remember. (lots of props to people who actually make physical albums with decorations/comments)

so anyway, how was it?

it was amazing. it was great to see greenie again. had a good time laughing with yuta on the plane on the way there about how excited we were. seeing greenie.. seeing hong kong.. going far far away..

the foooooooood.

hahhahha. plane ride there was okay for comfort.. my excitement made it harder to relax i'm assuming.

greenie looked exactly the same. hahahahhaha. if anything, she looked healthier.  i remember a weaker greenie when i last saw her.. of course, when i saw her for a little bit during graduation doesnt count. that was real short.

anyway. we just had so much to say.. as a blink-of-an-eye it was, our lives.. our thoughts.. our opinions have developed and there was a lot of things that registered in our heads as life went on.

it was great. catching up in a different city together.

she did such a wonderful job of taking yuta and me around. taking us to the hot spots of hong kong.
mmmm.. i loved the buddha. i loved the fresh architecture of hong kong.
new york has a stain. a good stain. but it was different.

it was different from seoul.. different from shanghai.

as much as i prefer nature, experiencing how cities with a lot of densely packed people differ and conform is dam exciting.

mmm.. i won some money in macau.
i never thought i'd live to eat the pork bun she talked about.
in the sickest way (in my carb-lover mind), i was ecstatic at realizing that the bread was a key part of why it was so good.

SO GOOD.

dim sum melted my heart.

homestyle bbq...buffets... hot pot...

everything a girl could want.

ocean park was awesome. i never went to fright fest.. but i tell ya.. they got A LOT to live up to after ocean park.

i dont hear much about fright fest from people.. it's not talked about much.
but haunted fest in ocean park???? the whole city knows about it.

of course, it's a 10-15 minute drive away from the city. (i dont even know.. it might actually be in the city.)
i dont think so.. but i could be really really stupid)

that makes it so easy for everyone to go..

so yeah, it was scary. after the first house, i sorta lost my voice and my heart was beating fast like gonzales fast.

i had to stop, take a breath and remind myself that if this is how it's going to be for the next 6 houses we're visiting.. i'm not gonna live to see my 401k money.

so i snapped out of it and even then i was scared shitless some more.

it was good to see greenie's parents again.. the home they live in..
good to see greenie's friends and of course, her boyfriend.

stories and chit chat go on such a different level when you actually meet the people in their life.

mm.. i remember we were walking on the street together.. and we all looked up to this display of billboards.

i was like.. greenie, why is that one upside down?

she said: to say that they'd go upside down to serve you.

me: ohHhhhhh. that's cute~

hahhahahahahahahha. if greenie wasnt there, i'd probably be like..

ohh.. this one needs to be replaced.

it was good times. i'm so excited she's coming here.
WHO KNEW!!! who knew it would be this quick.

oh yeah.. i caught e. coli. it was.. a disaster and it's still too painful to think about and write about.

i feel TERRIBLE for people who have to deal with it without any antibiotics..
to all of you out there that made it.. (the hard way..) i hear ya and i sympathize.

life's been back to normal. back to work. back to new jersey.

they finally fixed the pool so i went.. but i havent made it to a yoga class since i got back.
it's making me really really depressed.

i miss my grandpa. other than hoping that he is well (if he is actually somewhere), i hope the best for my life.. without him.

it is now T-4 days till i leave.

the sudden visit of my two cousins from korea sure made preparing for an out-of-country trip.. non-existent.
they both came to visit my grandpa and spend time with the family..
but funny how i cant seem to mention a word about grandpa to them..
i do wonder where they were.. what they were doing.. how they reacted.. when he passed.
and how much they miss him..

maybe some other time.

sleep has been crap. food has been crap. work has been crap.
the new super mario brothers on the ds lite is crap.
i am crap at the new super mario brothers on the ds lite.

it pisses me off so much during my commute.
and as much as i tell myself that pressing the button harder does not have any effect... i continue to press hard and now my thumb is slightly swollen.

yes. quite idiotic. i agree.

what's more idiotic is how emotional i get when i listen to songs about soldiers.

for instance... coming home by john legend:

We fight to stay alive
But somebody's got to die
It's so strange to me
A new year, a new enemy
Another soldier gone to war
Another story told before
Now it's told again
It seems the wars will never end
But we'll make it home again
Back where we belong again
We're holding on to when
We used to dare to dream
We pray we live to see
Another day in history
Yes we still believe

i think about how if i was a singer/songwriter... i'd wanna write a song about soldiers.

now, arent you glad i dont disgrace their experience with my retarded words?

anyway.

a different genre's perspective.. soldier's poem by muse:

How could you send us so far away from home
When you know damn well that this is wrong
I would still lay down my life for you
And do you think you deserve your freedom

No I don't think you do
There's no justice in the world
And there never was

my life lately: thinking about things that are not really related to me.

it is quite sad that the only time i know what's going on in my mind.. is when i'm doing yoga.

what's going on in my mind during yoga?

losing myself and becoming one with earth.

what's going on in my mind when im not doing yoga?

buncha crap.

it's either not myself or a buncha crap.

peace.

went to my first tai chi class today.

i have not made up my mind yet about the teacher.
i think he has 50% chance of branching out into a bad teacher..

fact is. i have no right to judge at this level of knowledge of tai chi.
which is a level very close to zero.

i have no doubt in my mind that he is magnificent in doing tai chi himself.

is he a good teacher? that is the question.

well. i'll shut the fuck up now.