MindTalk

How to stop procrastination

2009-10-18T06:18:00.002+09:00

Taken from dcjobs.com
When and How to Put an End to Procrastination by Norine Dagliano

M (Monday) – Make it Meaningful

Why is the task important? If you have been putting off something, take a minute to list all the benefits of completing the task. Look at the task in the perspective of your goal to get a job. Be specific about the payoff and rewards. Maybe this is enough to make you complete the task. If not ...

T (Tuesday) – Take it Apart

Break the task into small manageable pieces. Then be determined to complete just one of those pieces. Make each piece something you can complete in 15 minutes or less. Make the results measurable so you can see your progress. For example: if you can't seem to get around to writing your resume, agree to just type in your name, contact information and the resume headings. Sometimes this is all you need to get started, and then once you are into the task, you stay the course. If this does not work ...

W (Wednesday) – Write it Down

Write an intention statement and make it specific: "I intend to write a cover letter to the HR Manager at JOB Corporation by 3:00 pm today." Make several copies of the statement and post them all over your house, car and/or office. Then JUST DO IT! If this doesn't motivate you to complete the task, ...

T (Thursday) – Tell Everyone

Announce your intention publicly. Tell a friend. Tell your spouse, parents, children, career counselor, job club members. Telling the world your intention is an excellent technique to ensure its completion. Make the world your support group. You will either complete the task or face the embarrassment of having to explain why you didn't. If this doesn't work (and you find yourself avoiding these people), then ...

F (Friday) – Find a Reward

Remember when you were a kid and your mom said, "If you clean up your room, you can go outside and play"? Speak to the child inside you who is controlling the procrastination. A reward must be something that you would genuinely withhold from yourself if you do not earn it. Don’t' pick a movie as a reward if you plan to go anyway! " I will treat myself to a hot fudge sundae at my favorite ice cream parlor after I complete the cover letter to JOB Corporation". When you genuinely earn, the reward it feels good! If this does not work and you eat the hot fudge sundae anyway without having written the letter, then ...

S (Saturday) – Settle it Now

Do it now. The minute you notice yourself procrastinating again, plunge into the task. Imagine yourself at a mountain lake, poised to dive. It is often less painful to leap than to inch in slowly. Get it done so you can finally cross it off your To-Do List and feel good about yourself! Still Procrastinating?

S (Sunday) – Say no

Stop! You made the task meaningful. You tried taking it apart. You wrote an intention statement and then ignored it. You told everyone and withstood the embarrassment of not being true to your word. You found a reward and then rewarded yourself for nothing. You tried to settle it now and the cycle started again.

The difference between a Starbucks in Nashville and New York (or any other city, at that)

2009-09-27T08:11:00.005+09:00

First, the music. I don't know what kind of music Starbucks SHOULD be playing, but it sure shouldn't be what is coming in through my ears right now--long, dreary fiddle music accompanied by a woman singing about her father's ranch in an accent that is more dreadful than the song itself. Some would probably argue, though, that this is better than the sappy Korean music that sounds exactly the same as the song before it that they play in Korean Starbucks. So maybe I shouldn't complain.

But then, there is the most obvious difference. This space is far too underoccupied for its own good. You shouldn't be able to see 10 empty cafe tables next to you on a Saturday evening. This may be due to the fact that people have to drive about 5 miles to get to this Starbucks from any residential area. Yeah, it's pretty crazy that I even decided to come out here.

What's more...Part of the joy of going to Starbucks is watching all the bourgie wannabes carry their macs and sip their cafe lattes or short espressos with sly grins on their faces. You can imagine what kind of lives they are living, and what terribly important thoughts are going through their minds. About their ridiculous boss at work, their impossible girlfriend, the art exhibit they were missing to work on an assignment, the romantic date they had planned for the weekend.

Instead, this cafe is filled with a group of people whose lives I cannot even begin to fathom. To my left is a retired gramps in his 60s or so, clad in a shiny motorcycle t-shirt and ripped jeans. He's drinking a large green tea. -_-

Far to my front, several tables over, are two fat socially awkward girls with braces. They're studying AP chemistry and are probably too cheap to buy drinks, since there are nothing but books on their table.

Outside are a group of football jocks yelling over each other about how their truck can outrun anybody else's. Yeah... I can hear them through the window.

Oh and look who just walked in. Okay, they look pretty bourgie. The first girl is a beautiful, thin, tall girl with dark skin and a turquoise scarf wrapped around her shoulder and neck. The other girl has pale skin and seems like she's tried, unsuccessfully, to follow her friend's stylish move. They really should not be standing next to each other like that. If it was just to the two of them, I could completely imagine them in any other Starbucks cafe around the world.

But then look who is accompanying them. A stocky, sunburned, red-haired guy wearing a red shirt (that doesn't match his hair color), black basketball shorts that are too short for his own good, and dirty white sneakers. All topped off with a unibrow and an unshaved beard. Beautiful.

Does this make anyone want to come visit me in Tennessee? You can see these kinds of people and more if you just come on down to your ole uncle bubba's farm right here in the Volunteer state of Tennessee. Okay, Nashville really isn't that bad. I'm just in shock mode right now.

Back to life. Did you miss me?

2009-09-26T05:31:00.005+09:00

It's been several months since my last entry, mostly because I could not access my blog in China. Even after I got back to Korea, I was too lazy to write. Afraid, perhaps, that I had forgotten how to.

I am finally back home in good ol' Tennessee, where the rows of cookie cutter suburban houses greet me with their perfectly mowed lawns. I am a bit disoriented and and even frustrated at not having a job, not knowing when I will get one, and most of all, not being able to do anything about it. Government jobs, think tank jobs, anything and everything else under the moon. No luck yet.

And all my pride, all my education, the little vanity I had left from my mistaken sense of self-accomplishment all came tumbling--no not just tumbling, but crashing down. I've been stripped down to a girl in a faded T-shirt, pimples, and enough energy to let out a couple of sighs a day.

It is human nature to compare and to dismay if the situation looks bleak. Since I am human, that is exactly what I did. I would look up message boards where people talked about applying to government jobs to no avail, and become discouraged by the unreal qualifications of the people who did make it through. The worst was when I stumbled across a high profile think tank website, where a classmate of mine had just been promoted to a policy analyst position. After only 2 years. Under her name was a list of 20 or more publications, all about Afghanistan and Pakistan, the two most important countries to the US at this time. You overachieving eager beaver, I scowled. It was hard for me to be happy for her when I was barely scraping by, applying to non-paid internships. I even thought of emailing her, but remembered that we hadn't ended on a good note. Who would have ever thought that would come and bite me in the butt?

But despite all these immature emotions and frustrations, I have learned, again, what it means to be patient and to wait with no real end in sight. To not know what lies ahead is one the most discouraging and exhausting feelings in the world. But this requires me, maybe against my own will, to stop relying on my own logic, intelligence, and achievements for an answer. I am broken and hungry for some peace and rest from the raging battle that is going on inside me. And when I call, He (and I mean the big G) brings times of refreshing to my soul. It is the only thing that keeps me going. (Apart from my mom's nagging, of course :P).

In His time, He says. So I wait. And I wait. Just waiting for some sign of movement.

Maybe there will be none. Or maybe in several months, years, when I have forgotten what it feels like to be distressed. All I can do now is to be obedient and continue searching for what my purpose is in life.

And then there are times like these...

2009-06-24T01:34:00.005+09:00

when my heart feels like it's about to explode.
The rest of my body, my hands, my feet, my eyes, my lips...everything and anything that has any memory of that connection, all feel a bit numb.

Actually, my heart can't explode, although I rather it would.
It's just going to sink, deep below my consciousness, far far away from my grasp.

And then it's going to wander aimlessly in that dark nothingness...
until it can lift itself out of that wide abyss of loss.

I can't let go of what I fought for for so long,
despite how impractical and unreasonable and unrealistic it may be.
But now, I'm forced to, and my brain has to be rewired after all those painful connections have already been made.

So I resist. But in the end, my plan fails anyway and I start over on a blank sheet of paper.

The only thing scarier than an empty sheet of paper is the realization that you don't have any desire, or volition to put anything on it.

There is always some madness in love...but there is also always some reason in madness. Really? At least that's what Nietzche said.

I see the madness but where is the reason? Is it something we come to realize 10 years after the fact when it no longer matters? Someone explain why I only see the madness, and no reason.

Nietzche was wrong. There is always some madness in love...and we try to justify that undeniable madness with a weak argument called reason, but in the end, we realize we've fooled ourselves--again.

Love, unfortunately, does not serve for anything.

My Mother's Voice and the Power of Prayer

2009-06-08T00:17:00.000+09:00

My mother called me out of the blue today. I was home, being lazy, as I felt I should be on a warm Sunday afternoon. I had just experienced one of my most excruciatingly tiring days yesterday, having hiked up about 3000 stairs after getting drunk till 2 am the night before. My face was pale all day long from lack of oxygen. I blame being anemic. It strikes you at the most inopportune times. Just like phone calls from mothers.

"Did you go to church today?" She asked me as soon as I picked up the phone.

"..." A sense of guilt came over me like an overwhelming realization. "I will later," I said.

Wrong answer. My mother started crying over the phone and asked me, while ensuing in me the biggest guilt trip ever, why I had stopped believing.

"I didn't stop believing mom. I just need some time to find out the truth for myself," I said, trying in vain to calm her down.

"Why can't you do that while going to church?" she asked.

"Because I don't like the churches here," I nearly yelled back. "They're so commercialized, and they always ask me to teach them English when I go. I don't feel like I'm in a Christian community." I thought I had made a pretty good argument to defend myself.

She didn't believe me. "You're just being lazy. You don't want to wake up early on Sunday morning, so you're making up these philosophical excuses," she said between her muffled sniffles.

I thought about her statement. I couldn't get myself to argue, mostly because part of the reason I hadn't been going to church was simply because I needed rest from my hectic week. It wasn't a good enough excuse to miss church, according to what they teach you at church. If you really love God, you would still be there even if it cost you an arm and a leg and your night's sleep. That's what my mother said, at least.

For the next two hours, she kept asking me why I had changed. "You were such a strong believer in high school and you were so convicted to do God's work," she said. She thought I had been corrupted, among other things, by men. Men had somehow changed my faith and my priorities. I thought about this possibility and ruled it out. If anything, men had probably strengthened my faith because of the realization that I could not rely on them for anything.

To tell you the truth, it was painful. I appreciated the sincerity with which she spoke to me and the genuine concern she had for my spiritual well-being. But it didn't touch me. It felt intrusive, and I repelled her words, unconsciously. I had been sitting on the hardwood floor for quite some time, and my back had begun to hurt. I was shifting from one uncomfortable position to another, hearing her talk, trying to evangelize to me. It was a new experience to be on the receiving side of the prosthelytization. I had always been the one doing it before. Words entered my ears but not my heart. I felt nothing, surprisingly, despite her tears.

And then she asked me, "Can we pray together?" My mother has always had the habit of praying with me over the phone, at the airport, in bed, at restaurants, at school, wherever she had the opportunity to do so. But we hadn't prayed together in a while. I kind of missed it. I agreed, and I closed my eyes and held the phone to my ear.

Strangely, for the first time in all of the two hours we were on the phone with each other, the words she was speaking made me cry. I don't know what it was. Maybe the memory of feeling secure when I prayed with her in the past, maybe the unbreakable strength in her sobbing voice, or maybe it was really the holy spirit. Something. But it was no longer the guilt trip that I dreaded, but rather a soothing reassurance that everything--despite the million uncertainties about the future--would be okay. And I felt like running to my mother across the 10 thousand mile stretch of the Pacific Ocean to tell her I loved her and thank her for her little reminders about the reasons why I exist today.

I still don't know how I feel about Korean churches, but I think I'll pray tonight. A prayer that seems so foreign to me after all these months of being silent. Maybe that's the first step to get me back on track.

Obituary to Former President Roh Moo-hyun

2009-05-23T20:06:00.005+09:00

The 16th president of South Korea ended his own life today in the peaceful mountainside near his retirement home. He took with him the burden of a humiliating prosecution that stamped a man who fought his whole life for democracy and justice with a $6 million dollar corruption scandal. "You should now discard me," he wrote in a 14-line note, his last remaining message to the world. "I no longer stand for the values you pursue."

Former President Roh Moo-hyun, a human rights lawyer who was swept into office in 2002 on the wave of change and hope, was far from a conniving politician. He had a mind of his own, and frequently turned the floors upside down by challenging the traditional hierarchy of Korean politics. His opponents called him ignorant and reckless. His supporters, which continued to dwindle in size after fits of labor unrest, economic downturn and diplomatic friction, called him brave and revolutionary. Ultimately, he was a man with bigger dreams than his politics could handle.

Roh was born in the rural outskirts of Kimhae near Korea's second largest city of Busan a year after Korea was liberated from Japanese colonization. Even before becoming a politician, Roh knew the ins and outs of protesting against authority. In 1960, he led a student protest refusing to write a mandatory essay praising then president Syngman Rhee.

A self-made man who never attended university, Roh passed the bar in 1975 and practiced tax law until he personally saw the bruised and bloody bodies of tortured students. In a move that changed his life, he went from prosecuting tax offenders to defending students and labor activists from torture. In 1987, he participated directly in the pro-democracy movement that transformed the political nature of Korea. His fight against corruption, autocracy, and power was the example of the courage people wanted to see.

After being elected to a few insignificant regional political positions starting in 1988, Roh appeared from the shadows and won the December 2002 presidential elections by a narrow margin of 2%. His support base was a group of internet-savvy young people who called themselves Nosamo, or "Roh lovers group," and were hungry for political change.

As the underdog who knew seemed to know little about the complicated etiquette of politics, Roh came into office with ambitious plans of reforming everything from the tax system to the educational system to the location of the country's capital. As suspected, he pushed the wrong buttons on too many important people.

When change did not come as quickly as expected and the economy slumped from falling investment, Roh’s popularity also took a downward turn. His friendly policies toward North Korea were criticized as submissive appeasement and his decision to send troops to Iraq in contradiction to his distant attitude toward Washington flared up public controversy.

Then in March 2004, the opposition party impeached Roh on charges of unconstitutionally electioneering and governing incompetently. Though the constitutional court overturned the impeachment, Roh could not satisfy either his supporters or his critics with any of his subsequent policies. He ended his administration with several unfinished tasks, including the KORUS FTA and his unsuccessful housing reform plan.

But unlike other former presidents, Roh stayed in the public eye even after leaving office. He maintained a website and his quiet home in Bonghwa Village became a sort of tourist attraction for hundreds of curious bypassers a day. Despite the criticism regarding his policies, there were still many who revered the former president for upholding his values of progressivism, freedom of civil society, and welfare for the poor.

Then, in the midst of his transition to semi-normal life, Roh and his family members were accused of bribery involving $6 million dollars in payments from a businessman. After months of intense interrogation and public derailment, the former twinkle in the ex-president’s eyes turned into bloodshot fatigue.

“I apologize for disappointing the people,” he wrote, before taking his life.

In a society where a politician is expected to take moral responsibility for scandals involved with family members, Roh could not escape the guilt of tarnishing the sacred values he stood for. It did not matter that several other former presidents had also been involved in bribery scandals. He felt, with the most respect for Korean society, that he had not done his job as a civil servant. But his death leaves many with a disheartening question. If not him, who spoke out against corruption and power all his life, then who?

Roh Moo-hyun is survived by his wife, Kwon Yang-sook, his son, Roh Geon-ho, and his daughter, Roh Jeong-yon. May he rest in peace and the values he fought for be taken on by those left behind.

The Eloquent Sounds of Silence

2009-05-05T01:35:00.002+09:00

By Pico Iyer
Time Magazine, originally published in 1993, republished 2001

Every one of us knows the sensation of going up, on retreat, to a high place and feeling ourselves so lifted up that we can hardly imagine the circumstances of our usual lives, or all the things that make us fret. In such a place, in such a state, we start to recite the standard litany: that silence is sunshine, where company is clouds; that silence is rapture, where company is doubt; that silence is golden, where company is brass.

But silence is not so easily won. And before we race off to go prospecting in those hills, we might usefully recall that fool's gold is much more common and that gold has to be panned for, dug out from other substances. "All profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence," wrote Herman Melville, one of the loftiest and most eloquent of souls. Working himself up to an ever more thunderous cry of affirmation, he went on, "Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff's hands upon the world. Silence is the only Voice of our God.'' For Melville, though, silence finally meant darkness and hopelessness and self-annihilation. Devastated by the silence that greeted his heartfelt novels, he retired into a public silence from which he did not emerge for more than 30 years. Then, just before his death, he came forth with his final utterance -- the luminous tale of Billy Budd -- and showed that silence is only as worthy as what we can bring back from it.

We have to earn silence, then, to work for it: to make it not an absence but a presence; not emptiness but repletion. Silence is something more than just a pause; it is that enchanted place where space is cleared and time is stayed and the horizon itself expands. In silence, we often say, we can hear ourselves think; but what is truer to say is that in silence we can hear ourselves not think, and so sink below our selves into a place far deeper than mere thought allows. In silence, we might better say, we can hear someone else think.

Or simply breathe. For silence is responsiveness, and in silence we can listen to something behind the clamor of the world. "A man who loves God, necessarily loves silence,'' wrote Thomas Merton, who was, as a Trappist, a connoisseur, a caretaker of silences. It is no coincidence that places of worship are places of silence: if idleness is the devil's playground, silence may be the angels'. It is no surprise that silence is an anagram of license. And it is only right that Quakers all but worship silence, for it is the place where everyone finds his God, however he may express it. Silence is an ecumenical state, beyond the doctrines and divisions created by the mind. If everyone has a spiritual story to tell of his life, everyone has a spiritual silence to preserve.

So it is that we might almost say silence is the tribute we pay to holiness; we slip off words when we enter a sacred space, just as we slip off shoes. A "moment of silence'' is the highest honor we can pay someone; it is the point at which the mind stops and something else takes over (words run out when feelings rush in). A "vow of silence'' is for holy men the highest devotional act. We hold our breath, we hold our words; we suspend our chattering selves and let ourselves "fall silent,'' and fall into the highest place of all.

It often seems that the world is getting noisier these days: in Japan, which may be a model of our future, cars and buses have voices, doors and elevators speak. The answering machine talks to us, and for us, somewhere above the din of the TV; the Walkman preserves a public silence but ensures that we need never -- in the bathtub, on a mountaintop, even at our desks -- be without the clangor of the world. White noise becomes the aural equivalent of the clash of images, the nonstop blast of fragments that increasingly agitates our minds. As Ben Okri, the young Nigerian novelist, puts it, "When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity's chief instrument.''

There is, of course, a place for noise, as there is for daily lives. There is a place for roaring, for the shouting exultation of a baseball game, for hymns and spoken prayers, for orchestras and cries of pleasure. Silence, like all the best things, is best appreciated in its absence: if noise is the signature tune of the world, silence is the music of the other world, the closest thing we know to the harmony of the spheres. But the greatest charm of noise is when it ceases. In silence, suddenly, it seems as if all the windows of the world are thrown open and everything is as clear as on a morning after rain. Silence, ideally, hums. It charges the air. In Tibet, where the silence has a tragic cause, it is still quickened by the fluttering of prayer flags, the tolling of temple bells, the roar of wind across the plains, the memory of chant.

Silence, then, could be said to be the ultimate province of trust: it is the place where we trust ourselves to be alone; where we trust others to understand the things we do not say; where we trust a higher harmony to assert itself. We all know how treacherous are words, and how often we use them to paper over embarrassment, or emptiness, or fear of the larger spaces that silence brings. "Words, words, words'' commit us to positions we do not really hold, the imperatives of chatter; words are what we use for lies, false promises and gossip. We babble with strangers; with intimates we can be silent. We "make conversation'' when we are at a loss; we unmake it when we are alone, or with those so close to us that we can afford to be alone with them.

In love, we are speechless; in awe, we say, words fail us.

Violence a Tragedy for Asian-Americans

2009-04-25T23:45:00.002+09:00

Published in The Korea Times
By Sang-Woo Arnold Oh

"Jiverly Voong, an unusual name," commented an MSNBC anchor reporting the news. "Let me spell it for you: J-i-v-e-r-l-y V-o-o-n-g; Jiverly Voong," the anchor repeated.

"It is a name as incomprehensible as his act of killing 13 immigrants who were studying for a citizenship test at the American Civic Center, a local civic center that helps immigrants transition into the American culture."

At 10 a.m. on April 3, Voong, also known as Wong, backed up his borrowed car to block the back door to prevent escape. Clad in a bulletproof vest and armed with two pistols, Wong went on a shooting spree that left 14 people dead, including himself.

On April 7, a 69-year-old Korean man shot four people in a Korean Catholic retreat site in California. Both of these acts echo the massacre at Virginia Tech by Cho Seung-hee, a Korean-American student who killed 32 other students in Blacksburg, Va.

Such violent acts drive us to find an answer to the question of why? What is the motivation for such homicidal violence? As a Korean-American committed to Asian-American issues, Wong's story drove me to search the Internet endlessly to find answers.

What I found was disheartening. As was with the media coverage of the Virginia Tech Massacre, the discussion of the recent shootings has been restricted to only two themes: mental-health and gun-control.

Undoubtedly, these are important social issues. But to look for the reason behind the Binghamton tragedy within one of these two categories is to miss out, yet again, on an opportunity to address the deeper issue beneath the surface: the violence and the failure of assimilation of Asian immigrants into American society.

Our inability to imagine any alternative motive is perhaps because American culture is only trained to see Asians through the lens of the ``perfect minority." Wong and Cho's fundamental refusal to live inside that stereotype has left us with an interpretive paralysis.

Assimilation of Asian immigrants into American culture happens between two stereotypes: "model minority" and "perpetual foreigner."

The model minority stereotype, a seemingly harmless compliment, is simultaneously a racial refusal ― one that creates a false sense of acceptance and rejection at the same time. Thus the term, "perpetual foreigner."

These stereotypes prevent society from accepting Asians on their own terms. Instead, they can only be understood through America's distorted cultural representations.

This false translation renders Asians politically silent and socially invisible. The deep wound of silent invisibility now finds articulation in the only way we know how to be heard: violence.

It is a loud existential shout, a final attempt at becoming visible, being heard. These violent words are now being echoed in every nightly news bulletin, major newspapers and the countless feedback loop of the Internet media.

Our search for the shooters' motives should lead us to revisit our habits of cultural assimilation. It is time for us as a nation to explore the consequences of categorizing Asian-Americans as the "perfect minority" and see the social, political, racial and religious architecture of Asian-American subjectivity as a clue to the recent violence.

Or else the violent finale of Wong's massacre will again be as incomprehensible and foreign as his name.

I'm tired

2009-04-21T21:35:00.002+09:00

And frustrated.

Just want to give ...

Up.

지금까지 잘 버텨왔는데 왜 이제와서 이러지?

Finding ways to distract myself

2009-04-20T17:17:00.005+09:00

Every time I have to write a paper for class, I make up every excuse NOT to concentrate on it. I feel a sudden urge to clean my entire room, which usually stays untouched and pretty messy on a normal basis, and when that's not enough, I start organizing my roommate's stuff on the other side of the room. Then I start cleaning the kitchen, the living room, sweeping the floor, doing the dishes, even scrubbing the bathroom floors. Anything is better than having to sit in front of this computer and type out a paper. Anything.

I have a tendency to start making lists of things I have to do when I don't really want to do them. So I start with the current time (which right now is 5:21 pm) and plan out my the rest of my day exactly, detailing every thought I must think and action I must take to get something done by the time I go to sleep. For instance:
5:21-5:40 Write in blog about not being able to write my paper
5:40-5:45 Browse the internet to take a break
5:45-6:15 Read paper on North Korean economy by Hong Sung Kook and summarize
6:15-7:00 Write first page of paper
7:00-8:00 Dinner (yay!)
8:00-9:00 Read more papers on North Korean economy by other authors
9:00-11:00 Write page 2-4 of paper
11:00-11:30 Wash up and go to sleep

It's not that I'm OCD. I just like to imagine what I would most ideally be doing at certain times of the day. The funny thing is, once I finish writing the list, I rarely ever look at it again. Thus my conclusion that I'm the most impractical, inefficient person in the world. I just need some sort of therapy to convince myself that I'm being effective.

Even after I manage to sit myself down in front of the computer and open up Office, I continue to fidget. I start browsing the internet, "looking for references and sources" for my paper. Facebook is the devil. That's why I deactivated it. But just a couple of minutes ago, I forgot I had deactivated it and logged on. As easily as 1-2-3. They make it too easy to come back. It's an addiction I can't overcome.

I'm going crazy. I need to finish this paper but my mind is filled with everything BUT that wretched paper. Is there any way to cure myself?

Jon Stewart on NK's missile launch

2009-04-16T15:24:00.003+09:00

It's a little but I had to put it up.

Had a good laugh from this.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M - Th 11p / 10c

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Rainism

2009-04-15T12:52:00.014+09:00

It's raining, and I'm stuck inside a random building on campus.

Everything around me is quiet, exept for my typing and the hollow echo of raindrops outside.

The air is quite dim and muggy, and the building is quite monochrome, except for the window in front of me, dotted with colorful drops of water. Some are reflecting the gray sky, others the crimson wall paper, others the distorted contours of my face.

This morning, I looked out of the windows of my apartment and noticed the dreary haze outside. It might rain, I thought, but I folded that idea because carrying around an umbrella all day would be a hassle. Instead, I put on my hooded sweater, thinking that would suffice. As long as it isn't pouring outside, I thought. Well, it's pouring outside.

And so before stationing myself in front of this computer, I roamed around aimlessly from hallway to hallway, disappointed by the muddy floors and cramped cooridors. I was looking for something to pierce through the stuffiness, but everywhere I turned, all I could hear were the murmuring sounds of silence.

It made me think of my memories of rain. Some happy, some dramatic...mostly boring.

What comes to mind first, however, is that one night at Duke, when I walked back to my car in a dimly lit parking lot after spending nearly spent 10 straight hours in Perkins library.

I had mixed emotions of relief from finishing an assignment I had procrastinated on for weeks, and utter exhaustion from staring at the computer screen for the entire night.

The air was cold and fresh from April showers and occasional gusts of wind. I didn't have an umbrella, but I was wearing an extra large hoodie and sweatpants that kept dragging on the ground. Under it all were a pair of worn out flip flops that had lost so much of its traction that I couldn't stop myself from slipping at least four or five times in a 5 minute span. Each time I lost my balance, an unintentional "Whoa" would slip from my mouth. My voice was loud enough it echoed, and I would turn slightly red, even though nobody could see me.

The rain had been trickling down since I left the library, but as I got closer to the parking lot, it began pouring. Hard. I slipped my laptop underneath my sweater and looked up at the sky. All I saw were leaves, sparsely distribted across the gigantuous oak trees around me. And in between the leaves were little spots of sunshine, starting to glare through shamelessly into the naked air.

Then something strange happened. In that moment, all feeling stopped and I became numb. No pain. No joy. No frustration. No cold. Just nothingness...rest. Maybe this is what it feels like when you die, I thought.

I've tried to relive this experience every time it rains, but have never succeeded. The feeling escapes me, and the more I try to chase after it, the faster it seems to slip away from my fingers.

Maybe that's why I dislike rain so much. Because it teased me that once and refuses to share that magical feeling with me again. It taunts me and tells me I was only dreaming. But I wasn't, I couldn't have been. Because that day, I had been standing in the rain so long that my computer wouldn't work the next day. The diagnosis: resistor damage from shock.

Resistor damage from shock. Could that be the same thing that happened to me?

Adventures from this morning

2009-04-14T10:01:00.006+09:00

It's only thirty minutes past noon and I'm already ready to go back to bed.

In fact, I fell asleep for two hours after writing that first sentence and forgot everything I was going to say. Shucks.

I came home close to 3 am last night after wasting several hours in our student lounge. Instead of working on my paper like I intended to, I fell asleep on our teacher's couch. I remember scrunching up into a ball wondering why it was so damn cold. I used my teacher's blanket without telling her. I don't think I folded it correctly when I left.

At 5 am this morning, I went to a Korean police station for the second time in two weeks. When I told that to people at work, they all gasped and asked me with bulgy eyes what happened. It wasn't anything that dramatic. I just had to go to report on a crime or accident for class. "Oh," was their universal answer. They were disappointed. They had all wanted to be entertained with someone else's drama.

One interesting thing about Korean police officers. They try extremely hard to look tough on the outside but they're big softies for students who go to the same college as their kid and vitamin c drinks.

When two other students and I arrived at the police station this morning, the officer in charge of last night's incidents looked us up and down and smacked his gum at us.

"What do you want?" he asked, looking back down at his work. "We came to report on a crime or accident from last night," we replied, a bit timidly.

He looked thoroughly annoyed. "Why did you come so early? We're really busy right now." By the way, the first time we went to the police station, they told us we had come too late and that we should come around 5 if we wanted to learn anything.

My classmates and I looked around the office but nobody seemed busy. One guy was browsing the internet and checking his cyworld. Others appeared tired from the long night before, and were lounging lazily in their chairs.

"We'll wait here," said Hye-min, the girl who had assigned to be my tutor for the journalism class. "Wait outside," the officer said. With that, he left his desk, trying to scare us more, and went to talk to the other policemen in the office.

We didn't budge, and after about 5 minutes of wandering aimlessly around the office, he came back and said "Okay okay fine. Come in," and buzzed us in. Easy as that.

"What school do you go to?" he asked us. "Korea University," we replied in unison. He looked up and smiled for the first time. It was all smooth sailing from there. "My son goes to Korea University! He completed his first year and just started his military service!" I had to remind myself I was talking to the same guy.

He stapled us the actual reports of last night's incidents and warned us not to write down the criminal's name. On the front cover of each report was written in large letters, "You are not authorized to show this report to any 3rd party without the consent of those involved." It was the same rule that had prevented us from doing the assignment before, but today, it didn't seem to matter at all.

My report was about a soldier on duty who was digging through a pouch attached to the back of a bike. The police were making their rounds when they saw him and pulled over because he seemed suspicious. "Is that your bike?" they asked him. "It's mine. I'm just looking for my glove and a gear," he replied. Too bad the bag he was digging through was too small to lose anything in, and after fidgeting around for a couple of seconds with the police watching nearby, the soldier ran out of excuses to make. "So why aren't you leaving?" the police officer said, looking at the unopened lock on the bike. The soldier was said to list several unreasonable excuses until the police scared him by looking his name up on the computer. "It's not mine and I didn't steal anything!" he screamed. They took him in anyway and grilled him for a couple of hours before letting him go. A fair punishment, I believe.

After taking notes on our incidents, the three of us left the office, satisfied at our accomplishment. We had stood up to the police bully and got what we wanted. But as a token of our appreciation, we bought him and his colleagues some vitamin c drinks. "You shouldn't have," he said surprised. "I love these!" Cute.

And with that he was back to work. Back to the gum smacking, nose wiggling, stern faced police officer who had to put up the tough front so people wouldn't walk all over him. What a life.

Being the object of laughter

2009-04-13T14:49:00.004+09:00

People like to laugh at what I do. Or tell me I'm really funny, but with a condescending giggle that tells me that they think I'm rather dumb.

They announce mistakes I've made in the past to people I don't know, to teachers, or whoever happens to be around, which makes those people laugh. I can never give my own first impression unless I'm by myself.

I usually play along in good humor, surprised by my own stupidities. But it upsets me at times, when others feel like they have the right to reveal my private life to others with the sole purpose of making them laugh. Their words do not hold any bad intentions, but it hurts nonetheless. And I don't want to swoop so low as to say, "Well, I don't know if you remember doing X that one night when you were drunk off your ass..." Though sometimes I'm tempted.

If I decide to tell a story, that's my decision. When others tell it for me, it's always distorted, tinted with an underlying smirk. 'Thank God I'm not like her.' I know, thank God.

Maybe I'm being too honest. I imagine the people who read this would feel uncomfortable, especially if you've told people my story before.

Here's the thing. It's not that I want to make the mistakes I do. Or say the weird things that I do.

I would actually prefer to be the serious person everyone is afraid of. Instead, because I laugh along and somehow stop myself from lashing out against people who make sly comments about my life, people think they can walk all over me.

But what can I do? That's the extent of my character. If other people feel they can pump up their own self esteem by laughing at my words and my actions, I shouldn't stop them. After all, I would be doing some good in their life.

..

2009-04-09T16:07:00.001+09:00

I'm saving this spot for an entry that I will put up when everybody forgets about this date. I don't know how to make entries private on this thing, so it's my only method.

Music. I missed you.

2009-04-01T00:08:00.007+09:00

Today was the first time in a while that I let myself drown in live classical music. The experience unleashed a flood of emotions in me. With my eyes closed and my mind drifting softly away into the serene sound of the strings, I felt my tense nerves breathe a sigh of relief. And I smiled.

I often forget the power of live performances. The other day, I spent more than four hours browsing through youtube for my favorite piano pieces. Though the quality wasn't as good as I would have wanted, I couldn't help but be mesmerized by how beautiful and so incredibly expressive the songs were. And yes, I even cried.

But seeing and hearing the four middle-aged men today--submerged in the pure harmony of their instruments, swinging their bows rhythmically to each other, unaware of the bright lights around them--gave me a whole new feeling. I wanted to jump on stage and say me too! Let me join! Pick up an instrument and participate in remaking reality.

Of course, I didn't.

But it made me think the whole way home about those lonely nights with just me and my piano. Just me and my piano, and a limitless, unfathomable world of melodies, chords, and expressions. It was always lonely, but never empty. I began to miss that feeling.

There is a piano in a large lounge area in the underground student center at Korea University. The room is always bustling with students. I'm too embarrassed to play in front of those people. I wish I could have another lonely one-on-one with my piano. Just me, my thoughts, and my piano.

There's nothing more I could wish for right now.

About those two darn journalists

2009-03-26T00:38:00.006+09:00

For the first time since I've been to Korea, our class had a seminar-like discussion. It was probably not intended to be so open, but Kelly and I inadvertently chose to present on the same news topic, so the question and answer session extended into a wild exploration of thoughts and presumptions that I found quite enjoyable. It was a refreshing change from the one-way information the teachers had robotically fed us throughout the past year.

We discussed the significance of a recent incident in which two American reporters who were detained by North Korean troops on the Chinese border. They were on mission to report on the trafficking of female defectors and their living conditions in China. Their detainment has made the headlines, at least in the Korean media, for the past several days.

To give a short summary of what happened, 3 reporters from California-based new media station Current News and 1 Korean-Chinese guide were taking footage of North Korean defectors' escape route near the Tuman River. Around 3 am in the morning, 2 of the female journalists, a Korean-American named Euna Lee and a Chinese American named Laura Ling, were detained by North Korean guards at the border.

There are varying accounts of why the journalists were arrested. Some media sources say the journalists were detained after they crossed over to the other side of the Tuman River to get extra footage of North Korea. If that were the case, Lee and Ling could rightfully be prosecuted under North Korean domestic law. However, other sources say North Korean guards crossed into Chinese borders to arrest the journalists after unsuccessfully warning them not to take more footage of North Korea. If this were true, the North Koreans would have no right to keep Lee and Ling in custody, and unless they want to be labeled as abuctors again.

Aside from the uncertainty of what actually happened, there has been much debate about how this incident will effect US-North Korea relations. Now is a very sensitive period for US-North Korea relations, especially with North Korea threatening to test launch a satellite or intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching US territory from Musandanri.

While some experts warn that North Korea may hold the two American journalists as a bargaining chip with the US on important foreign policy matters, I tend to disagree. The US has already declared they are approaching this incident as a humanitarian matter, instead of a security one. That means if North Korea tries to pull any strings in the nuclear negotiation process by dangling the detained journalists on the line, the US will probably not listen.

North Korea already seems to have known their limits. If North Korea were truly trying to hold the journalists captive for some kind of nuclear ransom with the US, it would have been the first one to inform the US government of the incident. However, reports show that Korean intelligence sources were the first ones to spill the beans, and that was several hours after the incident occurred.

As of now, North Korea still suspects the journalists of being spies. Their goal, no doubt, is to get these two Americans to admit they were participating in espionage so that it can be used as domestic propaganda against the "imperialistic Americans" trying to destroy the socialist country. However, unlike the concerns of some groups, North Korea will not go as far as torturing the detainess to make them confess to being spies. Rather, the North Korean government is doing its best to treat its semi-unwanted guests with hospitality and comfort. All this to get a good name out for itself when the journalists go back to the US for a press conference.

While thinking about this incident, I questioned the ethics behind journalism and the extent to which journalists should go to report the truth. I am a firm believer in the responsibility of the media and especially those of journalists to investigate injustice and reveal the truth--even if it may result in significant losses. However, when that loss extends beyond the journalist or media organization itself and affects the innocent or the country the journalist represents in harmful ways, every step must be taken to minimize risk and maximize safety.

I was told that Pastor Chun Kiwon, who provided the journalists with a guide in the border area, warned them not to cross the river. However, when the journalists' guide suggested it was safe to capture footage across the river, the sensationalism of it all couldn't stop the reporters from taking the risk. It was unplanned and unanticipated, and it resulted in a huge fiasco for a lot of people. What will happen, for instance, to all the defectors captured on footage? Will the North Korean government persecute any of their family members or try to uncover their hiding place?

Of course, if I were ever in that situation myself, of having the once in a lifetime opportunity to walk across 1 meter of frozen water to the most self-isolated country in the world, I may have not been able to resist. But taking a step back, I can't help but look at the journalists' actions with a critical eye. They are bringing attention to a region that remained a secret yet relatively open passage back and forth from North Korea to the outside world. What will result is more crackdowns and less mercy. And for what? Their own greed, their own ambition, to reveal something that is already known to those who have been involved in aiding defectors for years, and to make a name for themselves as the American journalists who risked their lives fearlessly to unconver one of the world's most unsolvable enigmas.

But then again, who can blame them.

Just another blah day

2009-03-19T23:48:00.007+09:00

My hair is tangled and I look like I have an afro. It was in a ponytail all day and when I let it loose, the rubber band snapped and the tight ball of black strands suddenly expanded into a large poof. I don't want to look in the mirror, although I already see my reflection on the window out of the corner of my eye. Gross.

I feel ...blah. No other word better describes my current state than that overused sound. Blah, blah blah blah blah.. Blah! When you're too lazy to say anything else, or too scared to confront reality, blah comes in as an appropriate subsitute. They say pictures are worth a thousand words, but a thousand blahs are worth a million emotions that can't be described with any picture. It's a sound that replaces the chaotic jumble in your mind with a reasonably harmless-sounding concoction of vowels and consonants.

I'm wearing pink pajamas that have white hearts and the word "love" written all over them. I bought them because I thought they would make me happier, but they only remind me of what I'm missing. Not that I don't have someone I love. He's just not here next to me.

I have a large brown dot on my left index finger. That is sometimes the only way I remember which is my right or left hand.

I am tired but don't want to go to sleep. I don't want to have a strange dream again that wakes me up in the middle of the night. In my behavioral psychology class in college, I once read about a women who only needed 2 hours of sleep to function like a normal person. I wish I had her genes. Instead, I sleep like a rock and feel like one when I wake up with only 10 minutes to get ready in the morning.

At 5 am

2009-03-18T04:42:00.006+09:00

I'm awake at 5 am again. But today, for better or worse, it's not because I procrastinated. And it's not because I want to be, either.

I woke up with an unbearable stomachache after dreaming of meeting up with my atheist ex from high school. He had given me headaches before, but this was the first time he prevented me from sleeping. Which is saying a lot, because few things can prevent me from sleeping other than 1) feeling gassy, and 2) having too much on my mind.

But I admit, it wasn't really because of my ex. I hadn't even thought of him in ages, and the subconscious revival of his face almost made me puke in my dream. I hope he never reads this so he doesn't appear again in my mind, subconscious or not.

Today, the real culprit is my former boss from Hawaii I had dinner with last night. We decided on normal Korean food, but I forgot his standards are a little higher than mine. The meal ended up costing 50,000 won per person for what would normally be 10,000 at other restaurants. Rice, soup, and a couple of side dishes. Add a little steamed pork, spicy octopus legs, tofu with barbeque--and tag on an extra 40,000 won. I felt guilty, so I ate it all. To the very last bite.

I must have eaten a lot faster than I could digest, because I am still tasting the aftermath of the barqueque and octopus legs. That, and my twisting stomach, which by 4:30 in the morning was screaming out in pain, were the only things that could got a rock like me to come out of bed.

So here I am. And I'm noticing things I never had time to notice before.

You have a heightened sense of awareness at 5 o'clock in the morning. All of a sudden, you notice the way shadows fall across your room in haunting ways or how normal things in your rooms morphed into characters out of a horror movie. All crazy things that seem perfectly normal when you're delirious.

Or how it's already 5 am, yet the color of the sky outside is still the same dull shade of reddish brown that it was at 11:00 last night. Before I fell asleep, I remember looking through the window and blaming the yellow dust.

It must have heard me. As I took a sip of water from a cup that had been sitting on my desk since yesterday, almost instantly, I tasted the knawing bitterness of the dust that had somehow seeped into our apartment. Bah! I wanted to spit it out but had nowhere to do it.

I realized that sometimes you don't have a specific reason to write. Writing is a window to your soul, and you leave it open because you need some fresh air once in a while.

It's 5:15 now and my day starts in exactly 2 hours and 45 minutes. From then it's war--here, in the tiny yet bustling, busy, and way too complicated city of Seoul. But being up this early makes you a lot calmer than waking up 20 minutes before your next appointment. Maybe it's something I should try on a regular basis. To keep me saner than I would be in my delirious state, that is.

The reason I sleep

2009-03-07T05:23:00.006+09:00

Waiting on the other end of the line at 5:23 in the morning for someone to pick up is one of the most painful feelings in the world. It's when you realize that your attempts are utterly useless and your opinions, no matter how important that person considers you to be, don't matter at the moment.

Even when they pick up, they answer with a simple, "I'm sorry, I'm on the phone about an important meeting..." and there is nothing you can do about it.

You can't get angry, you can't ask to have more time, you can't take back the hours you spent anticipating, waiting.

In times like these, you just have to suck it up and enter that deep slumber of nothingness we call sleep. It takes the feeling away and makes it easier to bear.

Eating alone

2009-03-04T21:34:00.001+09:00

I always thought that eating with other people makes your food taste better.

But it doesn't. It tastes exactly the same.

I always disliked eating by myself. I thought it was a sign of weakness. Your inability to mingle with the rest of the group or to ask someone to eat with you.

But I tried it out today, all by myself in a large empty room lit by a bright fluorescent light. I didn't feel weak.

It was rather refreshing, and I was having all kind of thoughts.

Like the bizarre cold front that's seeping up the warmth of spring all over America's east coast, the slumping economy hanging on for dear life, my future, my boyfriend's boyish smile, the curiously strong taste of Altoids.

I must have eaten too fast. Next time, I will keep a book open next to me to space out my time.

I feel myself retracting inwards a lot more often these days. Is this part of growing up? To feel more than you express, to think more than you act, to say less and ponder more.

I'm starting to feel restless again. I feel like I need to pack up and leave by myself. Go travel somewhere, meet strangers, ride trains, order unknown dishes.

Maybe my trial in eating alone today was preparing me for the road ahead. To feel comfort in this big vast and somewhat empty world, and to be able to fill that emptiness with my impossible goals and a pinch of hope.

Post-college what?

2009-02-18T11:43:00.002+09:00

A few days ago, I received an email from the Duke Office of Information & Technology that my school ID and everything associated with it would be deactivated on Feb. 24th.

My heart sank.

They were telling us, move on! Let go! Go out into the world now and become an adult! And the way we're going to teach you how to do that is to now just cut you off...and give you a lame alumni.duke.edu replacement email. But no replacement ID. Now all you have left to do is give lots of money (even more than the $160,000 tuition everyone already had to pay) to help pay for unnecessarily extravagant 50 inch plasma tvs and $3000 spanish benches all over our campus.

I guess it had to happen sometime. I couldn't always remain under the comforts of a Duke name.

It was, in fact, too comfortable at times. It was a world of opportunity and unlimited dreaming, where money seemed to flow where the mouth moved, where the ideas lay, where the passion lived. But it was also a place of privilege, pride, and ignorance, where even altruism was driven by self-importance and the desire to succeed.

There was a certain vanity, though, that the name of Duke fed and nurtured. Especially here in Korea, where the names you wear and the people you know are unfortunately the only things that matter. Though I try to suppress and deny it, it fed my ego to see the expression on people's faces, filled with a mixture of want and approval, when I told them where I went to school. It was an automatic ticket into an exclusive world, which, as much as I hated, pulled at me like a nagging child.

But when faced with the truth, you realize that Duke and its glorious prestige is fake. It doesn't really matter. And those to whom it matters to don't really matter.

The billions of dollars and power associated with that name will not help you find happiness, or meaning, or allow you to understand the suffering of those around you in this complicated weave of human connections called life.

And so I'm happy it's letting me go. It hurts my pride and my vanity a bit, but those need to die anyway.

It's time to live by another creed.

To taste the rigors and tears and laughs of what this life offers without being covered by a blanket of complacency and undesevered optimism. To overcome our fears of disapproval, rejection, uncertainty, pain, and death. To understand what it means to suffer, and to love, and to find freedom in those unabashed expressions of human interactions. To find joy in serene silence as well as chaotic noise. And to accept, but to hope, in all circumstances, with a grateful heart.

To not be complacent. And to not forget the cries of those around you.

They don't teach you these things in the college classroom. It's what you learn in the smiling face of a child who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, in the wrinkled hands of your working parents, in the passionate words of a musing academic, in the broken yet hopeful cries of a war torn society, in your dreams, in your imagination, and in those deep dark corners of your life waiting to shine.

Procrastinating

2009-02-16T05:08:00.000+09:00

Unfortunately, I am doing what I promised myself I would never do after college.

I am up at 5 am in the morning. Not because I woke up early to see the sunrise.

I procrastinated.

Sometimes I don't understand myself. I know the time being awake during the wee hours of the night is going to be painful. I know that I will wish, every time, with every inch of my soul that I had started earlier and went to bed at a godly time.

It never ceases to amaze me how I don't ever learn.

Maybe in my head, I have subconsciously reasoned why it's better for me to procrastinate than to start on time, or ahead of it.

Well, because, I don't realize that I'm procrastinating. To me, I am starting on time.

Procrastinating is the socially unacceptable behavior of what I just call thinking. or researching. or trying to make sense of what you're supposed to be doing.

And, in the midst of my thoughts, I think of so many interesting things about everything else, that I tend to get... no, not distracted, just inspired! by unrelated ideas.

And it's not so bad, come to think of it, being wide awake while the rest of your block is sleeping, thinking of all the possible concoctions and connections and conspiracies that make this world go round.

Of course, procrastination would be bad if I didn't end up finishing the task at hand, but I always do.

Eventually.

It just requires a little more pain, with very little gain. And I always think to myself, I could have done much better if I started earlier.

But even my dissatisfaction with the quality of my work is only an excuse. I tell myself that I could have done better because I believe I have the inner talent to be able to. But due to external factors I could not control (i.e. having to think, research, get inspired), I was prevented from showing my true colors.

On the other hand, if, for instance, I take all the time I want, and I still come out with a crappy product, what will I tell myself then?

You see, humans can make excuses for everything because the world works in the eyes of the beholder.

And as long as I keep telling myself that I'm not procrastinating, that I'm simply digging deeper into what I am supposed to do, that I'm starting on time, I will inevitably continue procrastinating for the rest of my life.

I'm still waiting for someone to convince me otherwise.

Touching the past

2009-02-10T17:54:00.001+09:00

I have a slight obsession with stuffed animals.

I spent hours looking them up on the internet and I found myself "aw"ing at every one of them. And sighing.

I have the habit of naming all my stuffed animals, and I can't sleep without at least one of them.

It's the softness of their coat, and the way they remind me of my mother's smile.

Maybe it's because I feel lonely sometimes, and I don't want to tell anyone.

I remember in 1991, my mother had gone to the donut shop where she worked from 4 am, and my father had gone to do janitorial work at Hilton hotel, I heard my little brother crying, not knowing what was going on. He was only 1 and I was 6, but I sensed a overwhelming feeling of helplessness.

And that's when I grabbed my bright orange and green turtle, and began telling it all my worries. His name was Jefferey and he was the only one, or thing, that was with me all the time. Later, when I turned 11, my mother put him in the washing machine and he exploded. I cried for several hours until my mother gathered the fluffy polyester cotton from the washing machine and sewed him back together. He was never the same after that. A bit limp. But I still dragged him around with me everywhere.

And there there was my next bear, Muffy, who had a constant frown on his face. My aunt had seen how much I liked Jefferey, so she gave it to me on my 10th birthday. I would sit with the yellow bear in my lap, wondering why he always looked so sad, and conjectured ways to change his frown into a smile. I dreamed once that he came alive in my sleep, but it wasn't a pleasant dream. He asked me why I always tried to make him happy. He enjoyed frowning, because that was his way of expressing himself.

I had several others dolls after that. It would be senseless to name all of them. But with each one, I instilled a distinct personality, something that I could imagine, create, and nurture.

I still do this sometimes. And people find it strange. Almost baffling. A 24 year old girl who still squeals and reaches out her arms in delight when she sees fluffly stuffed animals on the streets, in the stores, and in other people's homes. But it's what connects me to my imagination and my comfort, as well as the soft memories of my sad yet strenghtening past. I surprise myself still, when my hand touches the plush softness of a stuffed animal while mindlessly passing it in the store for it almost instantly puts me at ease, and I remember, and smile at how far I've come and how much there is to come.

Korean man convicted in first marital rape case (against Filippino wife)

2009-01-17T05:53:00.000+09:00

BUSAN, Jan. 16 (Yonhap) -- A local court on Friday convicted a Korean man of raping his wife in the first such case in the nation's legal history.

The Busan District Court sentenced the 42-year-old man, identified only by the first initial of his surname "L," to a 30-month prison term suspended for three years on charges of forcibly having sex with his Philippino wife at knifepoint.

In 2004, a district court found a Seoul man guilty of sexually assaulting his wife. But this latest unprecedented ruling marks the nation's first judicial conviction of a man on marital rape charges.

"The defendant should have treated his wife with affection, because she has difficulties in speaking Korean and feels lonely in this remote foreign country. His behavior cannot be acceptable as he threatened his wife with a gas gun and knife to have sex against her will," the Busan court said in its verdict.

The man was also accused of forcing his 25-year-old wife to have sex even during her menstrual period. He married his Philippine wife in 2006 through an international marriage broker in Korea and was indicted last year on charges of rape.

The court said it suspended his sentence for three years as he expressed remorse for his misconduct. It also noted the victim was held responsible for failing to make efforts to communicate with her husband and to adjust to Korean culture.

brk@yna.co.kr

Blogger's comments:
The victim is responsible for failing to make efforts to communicate with her husband? And for failure to adjust to Korean culture?

What situation could you imagine where a wife could even attempt to communicate with a man who 1) believes he owns her as a commodity, 2) demands sex from her at knifepoint against her will?

There are several things wrong with this picture. The thought that it is okay to "buy" someone's dignity and freedom because your country has a higher GDP than the other's country is disgusting. And for the judges in Korea to fault the woman for failure "to adjust to Korean culture" is not being able to notice the huge plank in their own eyes. Maybe if Korea came out of its still backward patriarchal worldview and belief that it is better than everyone else (except white people), other nationalities and races would have an easier time adjusting. And do Koreans adjust to other cultures well when they are abroad? Never! They do everything they can to retain their tradition until it painfully fades with each younger generation.

What if Starbucks Marketed Like a Church?

2008-12-16T14:14:00.001+09:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7_dZTrjw9I

Mumbai

2008-11-27T11:15:00.001+09:00

I walked into Yonhap News Agency today, like any other average day, a little out of breath from running from the subway station not to be late. As I was was eating my daily peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drinking my cold calcium-enriched soy milk, I heard the copy editors next to me talking about a shooting in Mumbai. A shooting in Mumbai? My ears perked, since I have several friends with connections to that city, the hub of finance and tourism of India.

What I saw while browsing through the NY times, CNN, and the BBC was far more horrifying than the "shooting" I had imagined in my head. It was a massacre. As I sorted through hundreds of photos and eyewitness accounts of the terrifying incident, I felt chills running up my back and cold sweat dripping from my forehead. Young boys, aged 20 to 25, spraying rounds of ammunition from their AK47s with completely emotionless expressions on their face. Almost a look of content and entertainment. A complete, inescapable nightmare.

I guess being American, I couldn't help but be struck by the fact that the attackers were singling out people with US and British passports. If I had been in that crowd, I could have probably passed for being Korean, but still, the situation made me wonder what motives were behind their particular selection. What explanation was there for their incredible hate and deploration of Americans and Britons? Even after hearing several hours of news reports concerning this attack, I'm not sure whether the terrorists were planning on killing the hostages or not. But if they weren't, perhaps their goal was to keep them for ransom, or perhaps even a spit in the face of two supposed superpowers.

While thinking about this attack, I realized that the tactics of military power and hegemonic rule of the US had once against met its match--the untrackable, intangible, transnational strategies of terrorists who challenged the state's monopology over the use of violence. More force and military hard power's not going to fix the problem. It will only create greater strife and violence. So what's left for the world to do?

I guess that's the problem left to our generation to find out.

Vote for ( )

2008-11-04T14:50:00.000+09:00

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: November 1, 2008
NY Times

Here’s what strikes me this election eve: I can’t remember a presidential campaign that was so disconnected from the actual challenges of governing that will confront the winner the morning after. When this election campaign began two years ago, the big issue was how and for how long do we continue nation-building in Iraq. As the campaign comes to a close, the big issue is how and at what sacrifice do we do nation-building in America.
Unfortunately, you’d barely know that from the presidential debates. Watching them in the context of the meltdown of the financial system was like watching a game show where the two contestants were kept off-stage in a soundproof booth and brought out to address the audience without knowing the context.
Since the last debate, John McCain and Barack Obama have unveiled broad ideas about how to restore the nation’s financial health. But they continue to suggest that this will be largely pain-free. McCain says giving everyone a tax cut will save the day; Obama tells us only the rich will have to pay to help us out of this hole. Neither is true.
We are all going to have to pay, because this meltdown comes in the context of what has been “perhaps the greatest wealth transfer since the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917,” says Michael Mandelbaum, author of “Democracy’s Good Name.” “It is not a wealth transfer from rich to poor that the Bush administration will be remembered for. It is a wealth transfer from the future to the present.”
Never has one generation spent so much of its children’s wealth in such a short period of time with so little to show for it as in the Bush years. Under George W. Bush, America has foisted onto future generations a huge financial burden to finance our current tax cuts, wars and now bailouts. Just paying off those debts will require significant sacrifices. But when you add the destruction of wealth that has taken place in the last two months in the markets, and the need for more bailouts, you understand why this is not going to be a painless recovery.
The Bush team leaves us with another debt — one to Mother Nature. We have added tons more CO2 into the atmosphere these last eight years, without any mitigation effort. As a result, slowing down climate change in the next eight years is going to require even bigger changes and investments in how we use energy.
Given that Times columnists are not allowed to “formally” endorse candidates and given that the context of this election has changed so much from the policy positions the candidates started with, all I can suggest is that you vote for the candidate with these character traits:
First, we need a president who can speak English and deconstruct and navigate complex issues so Americans can make informed choices. We have paid an enormous price for having a president who could not explain and reassure us during this financial meltdown. We wasted a huge amount of time pretending that we could punish Wall Street without punishing Main Street — when, in fact, they are intricately intertwined.
A major money market fund — Reserve Primary — failed in September because the extra interest it offered customers derived, in part, from the $785 million in high-yielding Lehman Brothers commercial paper and notes it was holding. Depositors who told their congressmen to just let that greedy Lehman Brothers fail were shocked to discover this meant that their own money market would be frozen. No, we don’t need a president defending greed on Wall Street, but we do need one who can explain that we are all in the same boat, that a leak at one end can sink everyone and that while we must regulate, we don’t want to kill risk-taking and the rewards that go with that — which are essential to growing our economy.
Second, we need a president who can energize, inspire and hold the country together during what will be a very stressful recovery. We have to climb out of this financial crisis at a time when the baby boomers are about to retire and going to need their Social Security and eventually Medicare. We are all going to be paying the government more and getting less until we grow out of this hole.
Third, we need a president who can rally the world to our side. We cannot get out of this crisis unless China starts consuming more and unless Europe keeps lowering interest rates. Everyone is interconnected, and everyone is still looking to America to lead.
So, bottom line: Please do not vote for the candidate you most want to have a beer with (unless it’s to get stone cold drunk so you don’t have to think about this mess we’re in). Vote for the person you’d most like at your side when you ask your bank manager for an extension on your mortgage.
Vote for the candidate you think has the smarts, temperament and inspirational capacity to unify the country and steer our ship through what could be the rockiest shoals our generation has ever known. Your kids will thank you.

2008-11-02T23:11:00.001+09:00

(서울=연합뉴스) 진성철 기자 = 2009학년도 대학수학능력시험을 10여일 앞둔 2일 서울 강남구 광림교회에서 고3 수험생들이 좋은성적을 기원하며 간절히 기도하고 있다.

Christmas wish list

2008-11-02T20:54:00.000+09:00

a soft dreamy kiss from my hubby bubby

holding my fluffy white puppy in my arms

a digital camera to take pictures of my memories

hearing the words i love you from the people i love

someone's favorite book

realizing my passion in life

a surprise phone call from my college friends and flagship sisters

a special song sang by a special someone to me on christmas morning

snuggling in the warmth of a big hug

a CD of favorite songs

Stuck

2008-10-19T18:31:00.000+09:00

I'm incredibly restless right now. I have been sitting in the LG-POSCO "global lounge" for the last three hours, surrounded by other tired looking KU students studying for their midterms under the dim lamp light. My mind is wandering back and forth from having to write my article at Yonhap about the North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act and studying for my flagship midterms.

Most people, if they get stuck on one task, would move onto the next task of importance until they feel they are ready to return to the first one. Unfortunately, I'm completely uncapable of doing this, which means I spend hours dwindling unproductively on one assignment until it's time to do something that doesn't require thinking, like eating, or sleeping. Then, when I lay down in bed, I hit myself on the head for not at least getting half of my other responsbilities completed. Why I can't get myself to fix this problem despite my complete awareness of it is a mystery to me. They say where there is a will, there is way. But I think willpower is only the prerequisite to getting started. If your abilities don't follow, all you do is sit around worrying, like I do.

Why can't I make progress on my article about the NKHR Reauthorization Act? Well, for one, I'm trying to make it too perfect. It's the first article that Yonhap is letting me write on my own, so although I know I'm only in the process of training, there is an unspoken pressure that this piece will determine people's perception of my writing skill for the rest of the time I am there. Even as I am typing that statement, I know it's not true. To tell you the truth, though, I'm not as much worried about the English North Korean team's evaluation of me as much as I care about what the English-speaking copy editors think of me. It's a complex about language I've had for my entire life. As a Korean American who has always been noted for my difference from mainstream America, I feel like I have to prove myself to other Americans of my English ability. It may sound ridiculous, but try growing up in Louisiana, where the color of your skin and the shape of your eyes automatically elicits taunting from those around you. Then, you'd perhaps understand where this conscious effort to master English comes from. While it would be easy for me to write an article tracing the facts about the reauthorization act, I know that without some deeper analysis or thought-provoking argument, people are going to read my article and chuck it away in the trash. I can't stand the thought of that.

The second thing that's stopping me from completing this article is the fact that I know too much. It's too complex. The way the U.S. uses human rights as a political tool is a much more complex issue that what it seems at first glance. Although many human rights groups and activists lauded the reauthorization act as a step closer to freeing the oppressive state, I see it as lip service to appease the neoconservatives who are criticizing Bush for being too soft on North Korea. So behind the rhetoric of freeing the North Koreans from human rights abuses is an even stronger political motive to uphold the image of a righteous America using soft power to change the world. In multiple cases, the U.S. has used the human rights discourse as a red line in the sand to prevent nondemocratic countries from having the moral authority to challenge the U.S.'s hegemonic position.

However, we've seen from history that bringing up human rights on a national level serves more as rhetoric than actual change. Take, for example, China. The U.S. has criticized China on several occassions, including right before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, about their human rights violations. China, as always, replied to the U.S.'s outcry with the same message they've been saying over and over again: that meddling with domestic issues is a violation of China's sovereignty. In the midst of rapid economic growth and compressed modernization, the last thing China wants is domestic instability due to complaints about human rights violations. It is also interesting to note that despite China's attempt to grasp an iron fist over the country's domestic problems, the people have been demanding basic rights for themselves, not because democratic countries such as the U.S. have criticized China, but because the economic development has created a middle class able to protest the restriction of their freedoms.

Now, how to articulate this opinion in a noncontroversial and organized way is the problem. I know what I want to say and it's all in my head, but I can't figure out the "right way" to do it.

living in the binary

2008-07-15T22:35:00.000+09:00

it's difficult for me to be gray about the way i feel for people. i either care a lot about them and want them in my life or i could care less about what they do. i wish i could find some kind of balance in the middle, especially when it hurts so much like this to be apart from the person i care about. because for me, to not be so effected by his absence means to stop caring and even though i'm trying to find a balance, my heart is not letting me do so. i don't know what to do

Finding hope again

2008-07-04T14:33:00.000+09:00

Living Water retreat 2008. It was held in the surreal calmness and beauty of Lake Junaluska, a Methodist community in the heart of the mountains of North Carolina, just over the rolling hills and winding roads of Tennessee.

It was here that I began grasping for God with every tender longing in my body and it is here that I was found again in my brokenness. It was here, in the midst of my brothers and sisters--some of whom I had known since my more innocent days in middle school--that I began breaking down the wall that had separated me from God for so long. It was a wall made of pride, self-sufficiency, men, lust, and perhaps most importantly, fear. I was afraid to be Christian, because for me, that meant being radical, going against everything that society had taught me, and living a born again life that I couldn't control. But today, there was a short demonstration of what it was like to take a leap of faith in which a young boy jumped into the pastor's arms without any fear. God will never let you fall when you make that jump, the pastor said. That's what makes life exciting. If God had just picked you up from the edge and placed you down on safe ground, your life would be so boring! Those words resonated in my mind and were ringing, echoing in the back of my head. I imagined myself stepping up to the ledge, scared, timid, closing my eyes and taking a leap into the darkness of uncertainty. I thought I would fall straight to the ground, but I flew--through the cold and empty feeling of loneliness into the awesome presence of God.

Another pastor said last night that the biggest problem with our generation of Christians is not drugs, or alcohol, or the media. It is boredom. We have somehow became bored of Christianity and are no longer awed by the astonishment of God's love. God's love, the awesome power that lives inside each and every one of us that promises us to never leave our side.

I remember when I wrote in my New Year's resolution for 2008. "To be fearless in my pursuit of God." But I have been everything but fearless. I have shriveled at the face of society's expectations, my parents' expectations, my pride, my education, my lack of confidence in myself as God's child. No, I don't want to live hiding anymore from what I believe God is calling me to do. To reach out to those who are in pain, to share in their suffering, and to spread the good--no, awesome--news of LIFE to those whose souls are dying. And to reach out to my sisters, who I know have felt so much pain and have nowhere and noone to share their stories with. I lay my life out for you Jesus. Help me to become fearless in following you and what you have commissioned our generation to do.

O Lord, since Thou hast died
To give Thyself for me,
No sacrifice could be too great
For me to make for Thee.

Refrain:
Lord, send me anywhere, Only go with me;
Lay any burden on me, Only sustain me.
Sever any tie, Save the tie that binds me to Thy heart—
Lord Jesus, my King, I consecrate my life, Lord, to Thee.

I only have one life,
And that will soon be past;
I want my life to count for Christ,
What's done for Him will last.

I follow Thee, my Lord,
And glory in Thy cross;
I gladly leave the world behind
And count all gain as loss.

Philippians 3:13-14

2008-06-08T03:52:00.000+09:00

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Introverting myself?

2008-06-07T13:30:00.000+09:00

In these last several days, I have been forced to face inward toward myself for the energy I usually get from interacting externally with the people around me. Multiple times have I picked up my phone to dial someone to talk to or plan dinner with, only to realize that everyone is so busy with their own lives that they only reluctantly give me the time of day.

Contrary to what I would have liked, not having someone or something to constantly distract my attention has forced me to confront the dreadful questions that have been lingering in the back of my mind. Today, in the midst of my massive migraine and drained body, I finally said a prayer to the God that I have neglected for so long. Until now, I had constantly been able to rely on those precious few people who have, for better or worse, kept me from sinking in loneliness and pondering about my fears. But now I'm submerged deeply in this thing called uncertainty, and nobody is there to sweep me away from the discomforts of truth.

It's been so long since I have genuinely prayed to God that I have almost forgotten how to do it. The unfamiliar feeling of reaching out to God is combined with the overly repeated and seemingly meaningless phrases of Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, and forgive me of my sins.

I remember in high school when I had felt the same sense of loneliness and confrontation with reality, and that in my humble tears and pain, I had reached out to Christ with all sincerity and brokenness. That moment had been so pure, so untainted, and so real for me. Why it's so hard to relive that moment as the time passes by, I don't know. Perhaps it is because I have come to rely too much on the people around me for my sense of purpose and supporting energy. I haven't spent enough time thinking to myself and relying on the promise that God had given me from the beginning. It's so hard to trust something that has become so unfamiliar to me.

Is there hope? They say there is. They say that God is always knocking on the door of your heart and you only have to open it to let Him in. But even that notion is foreign to me. What does it mean to open the door to my heart? I like dealing with the abstract, but this is too literary for me. I am almost at a point of desperate need. I need Him and I don't know how to reach Him.

Missing

2008-06-04T05:32:00.000+09:00

It's been a while since I have felt the cold tingle of an empty space, a dull yet overwhelming sense of reaching out to grab hold of something--his warm hand, his soft shirt, the remains of a reassuring smile--and grasping nothing but thin air. I blame myself partly for allowing myself to feel this way, but at the same time, when I remember back to the the days when that space inside my heart was filled with the arousing warmth of this pulse and his constantly beating heart, I cannot help but smile. It's not over. Just a pause. A painfully slow one.

Last night, I couldn't stop the tears that fell from my tired eyes. I just wanted to hear his voice and feel safe within his sound. It took a while but he got back to me and calmed my nervous heart again, after which I could finally put myself to sleep. I woke up with my eyes swollen but my mind rested, and the first person I thought about was him.

I don't like feeling so vulnerable. At the same time I cannot picture any other scenario. If only for him. As he said yesterday, there's no wall between us. Whenever I find myself retracting and building up a that invisible wall, I stop and remember the countless hours we spent together when he brought that childish joy to my jaded heart.

This is only the beginning. It's only going to get harder, I know. But despite the weary scars on my prudent disposition, I only see myself moving forward in this fight. To him who shows me the sun after the rain and keeps me wanting more...

El libro extraordinario

2007-12-23T13:19:00.000+09:00

I have always wanted to write a book about something extraordinary that would stop people dead in their tracks of whatever the hell they were doing and want to fulfill their wildest dreams. It hasn't happened yet. I'm trying to figure out why.

I will sometimes get these bizarre ideas or think of those one-liner quotes fit to be published in "the 100 best sayings of all times" in the middle of a normal day, so I rush to write them down on whatever scrap of paper I can find, including torn napkins, used printer paper, and the backs of old books. Unforunately, my brilliant ideas suffer one of two fates: (a) I forget what I was thinking before I get to write it down, or (b) I lose the sheet of paper I have written my life-changing idea on because it was mistaken for a napkin to clean up the messy table spill. Whenever B happens, I think to myself that someone somewhere in this world will one day discover my precious piece of writing and think, what a pity that this idea wasn't developed into some amazing masterpiece. Then they will steal my idea and became billionaires overnight because it has inspired them to invent the next great human accomplishment. Yeah.

I have one particular folder that is filled with ideas I have somehow managed to retain or remember not to throw away. And why haven't these been used to make my marvelous book, you ask. The only problem with this folder is that I'm too scared to go back and look at my ideas, perhaps in fear that they aren't as special as I thought they actually were when I wrote them down. I actually ventured through them around 4 am one random night in which I had abosolutely nothing else to do, and I discovered that half of the scraps of paper said exactly the same thing. Was it my bad memory or refusal to accept the harsh truth of my uncreativity that kept eliciting the same spectacular yet not so original idea, over and over again?

And what did my conscience repeatedly throw up onto those poor scraps of paper over and over again? They were thoughts about my mother, which seems to be a recurring theme in my writing. And a recurring theme in my dream that I cannot seem to get rid of. So perhaps this extraordinare book I want to write has nothing really to do with changing the world and everything to do with just understanding myself.

My chats with Grandma

2007-12-22T12:51:00.000+09:00

There I was, indecisively fidgeting over which journal to write in and thinking about what content to fill them with when my 75 year old grandmother, wearing a layered orange long-sleeve polo shirt and brown spandex pants came huffing and puffing into my room. She was carrying a plate full of bright organge tangerines on which little drops of water had formed from the condensation. Her hair was as crazy as ever, a brown mess of artificial curls she had paid $20 to a local Korean salonist to do.

As she handed me the plate of tangerines, she looked at my messy coffee desk and smirked, "books again?" In fact, there were no books except for my lattered brown journal, held shut by a red and white rubber band. She fingered the brown sheets of paper I had recently torn out from my bound journal and asked, " Is this English?" I nodded as I started peeling the juicy tangerines. The sweet smell penetrated my stuffy nose and my mouth began to water as I brought the tender crescent-shaped pieces to my lips. "If only I had learned to write like you," she said, still staring at the brown sheet of paper filled with my messy cursive notes. "You're good in English and Korean and Spanish and Chinese and Japanese!" she exclaimed. "No grandma, I don't speak Chinese and Japanese," I replied, smiling at her excitement. "Not even a little?" she asked. I shook my head.

"But you know, Grandma, my teachers in my Korean program make fun of me sometimes because I use satooli (a rural Korean accent with a tangy drawl)," I noted. She burst out in laughter, slapping her thighs. "Well, you should tell you professors that your grandma uses satooli, and be proud of it!" she replied. As the echo of her laughter died down, I saw my grandmother staring out into the spaceless time of her past. She sighed. "You know, your mother was born in Seoul, but we moved back to Daegu for 2 years because, well, we had to. But when we came back to Seoul, your mother had such a little Daegu twang that the whole neighborhood came by to hear her speak. She was a spunky little kid," my grandma narrated. I imagined my mother returning to her playful 6 year old state, entertaining the neighborhood and especially the elderly with her cute smile and impossibly adult-like sayings. It contrasted deeply with the mother I knew now, who was always tired after a long day of work and tended to channel her frustrations onto our family.

"Back in the day, I used to have a small cigarette stand," my grandmother continued. By this time, I had already peeled and eaten four sweet tangerines and my senses were alive to absorb the story my grandma was about to tell me. "Whenever I would have to go in the house to answer the phone or take care of some business, your mother would stand out in front to take the customers. They would ask for different types of cigarettes and hand your mother a big bill. Your mother would calculate the cost of the purchase in her head and give them back the exact amount of change. Now, most of the fellas that bought the cigarettes were old men, and they just about fainted when they saw how smart your mother was." A broad smile creeped upon my grandmother's wrinkly face.

"Your mom's older sister, your aunt, on the other hand, was quite another story," she laughed. "At the store, we had a batch of gourmet candies that nobody bought. Then one day, a whole bunch of them disappeared. I thought someone had come bought them, so I filled up the space with more candy. They kept disappearing, so I assumed they were being sold to some well to do stranger buying treats for their kids. Then, as I was washing your aunt's backpack, a whole string of candy wrappers and boxes came out from the bottom of her bag. She had been taking them to eat all by herself." My grandmother shook her head and giggled to herself. Her eyes twinkled while she told her stories of the past.

"If I had a chance to study, I would be able to read and write myself. But those Japanese imperialists made us learn Japanese until I was in 5th grade. It was only after liberation that I learned the Korean alphabet. But then my father died when I was just finishing grade school and I had four younger siblings to look after, so my Korean is all improper. By the time our family settled down and recovered from my father's death, I was already ready to get married." But Grandma, your Korean is perfect, I told her. "These words are not really words," she replied sadly. The everyday language she had learned had only gotten her so far, she continued, and put up a impassable wall between her and the high society she had for so long yearned to be a part of.

"But you know it, your mother was that smart, I tell you," she kept repeating. She patted my hand and got up from the bed. She straightened out the slightly wrinkled orange bedsheet where she had sat and slowly walked downstairs. "Your mother was that smart."

Later that night, I nonchalantly questioned my mother about her experience working at the family cigarette stand. "I heard you were quite the calculator," I said, giving her a playful nudge. My mother laughed and replied in a childlike voice that I hadn't heard since we went on vacation to Europe, where she was able to see her favorite painters' classic masterpieces, "Now, you know your grandmother always exaggerates things two times as much as the real thing. It was only once or twice that I calculated the cost of those cigarettes in my head."

Without giving me a chance to respond, she moved onto the next topic: her apprehension about me not being able to find a good spouse. "It's time for you to get married, you know," she said, as if our previous conversation never existed, leaving me only to imagine the childhood life of the woman I should know most about.

beyond the boundaries of nationality

2007-11-08T19:52:00.000+09:00

I have a different perception of what nationality than most people, I think. That is because I see the dangers in allowing yourself to be defined by a certain nationality.

Having a fixed perception of nationality means subscribing to the narrative that the dominant source of epistemology has assigned to you. Therefore, whoever and whatever does not fit into that definition of citizenship is excluded, sometimes politically (which is the easiest to notice but perhaps the least painful because it is something you can openly fight about) and sometimes cultural (which is less tangible but still allows something for concrete discussion)... and then sometimes in ways that don't make any sense at all and have no backing whatsoever. It's when you FEEL like someone is an outsider because of a reason you cannot quite grasp, and that is because whatever your version of humanhood is has become so deeply embedded and internalized in your mind that you cannot even locate it in your memory.

Today, as I was browsing Amazon.com for new books to indulge in and screening the podcasts for some interesting topic, I noticed I was being drawn to titles like "America Abroad" and "How to Converse Intellectually on American History." I wanted to know what it was to be "American," whatever that meant, and in order to do that, I had to know what this country's official narrative was. To put it shortly, I had to know the lingo in order to have people respect me as someone living on American soil. But why is this bothering me so much? Of course, as an American you should know about what's going on with your country.

I think being aware of what's going on in the world is essential, but viewing and understanding people and experiences through the lens of nationality allows for people to develop a consciousness of the other... without even knowing it. It's the same discomfort I felt at the conference I was at a few days ago when a policy expert, who we described as being "borderline racist," kept saying "We Americans" and "You Chinese" in a tone that barely gave any credit to the Chinese delegates.

Anna told me she doesn't really agree with what I'm saying. But she did say that my ideas are probably influenced by the fact that I grew up in the South in the U.S., which basically meant that my experiences with racism and peripheral existence were the foundation of my beliefs. She's probably right. Who isn't influenced by their past experiences? But I have a human need to have my experienced be legitimized and understood, not as some isolated incident, but an ongoing fight against this invisible hegemony of rationality and whiteness.

My encounter with a Hawaiian Police

2007-09-13T15:52:00.000+09:00

If you hadn't noticed yet, I am a perpetually late person. Especially in the mornings. I blame it on my inability to hear my obnoxious phone alarm clock going off at least 5 times within an hour's span, or my lack of sleep the night before because I have procrastinated on the extravagant amount of work I have to do. For whatever reason, the bottom line is that I am always in a rush to get to my next destination--leaving me no choice but to speed.
Perhaps it's the mental adrenaline or anxiety that always compels me to push the gas pedal at full speed on straight open roads, but I usually always have a legitimate enough to justify my breaking the law. Today, however, I wasn't even that late or in that much of a hurry, but I had internalized the habit of driving fast so much that I automatically hit the gas as soon as I reached the open road. I was zooming past all cars (slightly wondering why they were going so slow) when I saw a cop car pulling out onto the road. His partner, who was driving a blue van, waved at me to stop on the road. Shit.. I thought. I guess it hadn't hit me that I was driving 40 in a 25 mph residential zone. I didn't even have my insurance card yet, but thank God I got my car registered a few days ago. As he walked towards me, he asked for my license and registration, which I had to get out of the car to get. "I'm so sorry officer. We were just late to class..." I said with teary eyes and a shaking voice. Caroline, who was sitting next to me, quietly agreed. Where's your insurance card? The policeman asked when I handed him my registration and driver's license. I just got my car a few days ago and I registered for insurance but it hasn't come in the mail yet," I lied. "They didn't send you a sheet of paper or a temporary card?" he asked. I shook my head. Caroline was surprisingly calm for the situation we were in. I later understood why. The cop was wrinkling his eyes in the sun and I could see his farmer's tan from under his uniform. "You know I could tag you for not having your insurance," he said. I gulped and nodded, waiting anxiously, either for mercy or punishment. "Just drive more carefully next time, alright?" he said, handing back my license and registration. I was in shock. "Thank you so much!" I yelled, as he was already walking back to his blue van.

"Oh my gosh, I was about to have a heart attack," I told Caroline, finally calming down enough to breathe normally. "Yeah, there are a lot of cops in Hawaii," she said. "But a lot of them are really laid back. They'll usually just let you go." Maybe it was just my bad experience with cops in the past, but I had never considered that possibility (for cops to be so lenient, that is). "Even if they catch you with a bag of weed," she continued, "they'll take it and let you go." She laughed. "They'll just smoke it by themselves." We analyzed the nature of cops in Hawaii. It might just be the weather that they're so nice. That and perhaps the fact that they have nothing else to do. Whatever the reason, I feel indebted to Hawaiian cops and feel a weird endearment towards them because they let me go. What a selfish feeling indeed.