Finally feeling sleepy. Probably from trying to write something/anything.

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Post tags: couch, rats, sleep, what the heck

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1. joseph and i were married on july 26, 2003. i was 23. the next day i turned 24. there were about 1000 people at the wedding, with 4 receptions. but no limos. just friends..lots of friends

2. i like cooking for friends and family. i took amateur classes at FCI to make sure i wouldn’t feed them crap. but i have no aspirations in becoming a professional chef.

3. i like stupid movies. joseph calls it the “theresa network”. i’ll watch 13 going on 30, notting hill, and love actually whenever it shows up on tv and i’ve got free time. but some stupid movies will make me gag – most recently “enchanted”. but i also have a love for smart movies.

4. i used to go karaoke alot back in college. i like to scream into the mic, so i usually sing korean rock ballads. my favorites are lee seung hwan, and kim kyung ho

5. at church, i like to sing at the same octave as the guys when singing worship songs. sometimes it scares the people around me.

6. i love to drive. i miss having a car. my first car was an electric blue nissan altima, after college i bought an acura tl. i now own no car, but part owner or many buses and subway cars.

7. i like to play golf, but i’m not very good anymore. i’m a better coach/caddie.  in middle/high school school i used to play alot and actually had a decent handicap.

8. i grew up in inner city baltimore. alot of the stuff that happens in the Wire seems familiar to me.

9. i dislike curry, but will make it for friends and will eat it.

10. i LOVE rice. my comfort foods are rice with kimchi and seaweed soup on the side. it’s actually the first meal i ever remember eating. i hope this will be an early food for our daughter too.

11. i like to do crafts. i like papercrafting and knitting. i’m currently in the middle of doing a papercraft of pee-wee herman for a coworker, and i’m trying to knit a baby blanket.

12.  i ran into a coffee table when i was a kid. i now have a scar immediately underneath my left eye. most people can’t see it because my glasses usually help hide it

13. i’ve lived in 11 different homes in maryland alone (does NOT include dorms). 2 in nyc. for a grandtotal of 13. (how fitting…)

14. i’ve had the same cell phone number since 1998.

15. i don’t like chocolate. i had a traumatic incident in elementary school where i had some chocolate milk and shortly thereafter threw up all over my and my friends lunches. i’ll eat white chocolate sometimes tho.

16. i have a large family. 26+ “cousins” just on my mothers side. 26+ “cousins” on my dad’s side as well. i haven’t met everyone yet, so i’ve stopped counting. the ones i’m closest with are those i grew up with, and helped take care of as i was growing up myself.

17. i’ve always dreamed of owning my own business. i’ve already thought through my business plan, financing and 5 years worth of goals with high level milestones every 6months. my parents have owned at least 8 businesses that I am aware of/can remember.  most of my aunts and uncles own(ed) their own businesses as well; ranging from a furniture company to a cafe.

18. i scare most people the first time i meet them. it’s usually me being friendly, they just don’t realize it.

19. i hate the heat. when i vacation, i like places that are usually cooler and no beaches please.

20. i’m skeptical about alot of things.

21. i don’t like people who have a problem with or complain about something but don’t have suggestions on how to fix it.

22. i can drink heavily, but choose not to. my tolerance is hereditary.

23. i like offal meats. hearts, gizzards, feet, tongue, ears, marrow, intenstine, tripe, sweetbreads, livers, etc. i don’t eat them often tho. they are not good for you in excess.

24. i’m strangely good at dealing with customer service and getting what i want either over the phone or in person

25. joseph is my favorite person in the world. right behind my halmuhnee =P

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Post tags: 13 going on 30, acura tl, agapeshack, amateur classes, baby, blankets, buses, business, caddie, car, cars, chocolate, church, cooking, cousin, coworker, dad, drinks, facebook, family, food, glasses, heated, joseph, kids, kim kyung ho, kimchi, knitting, korean, koreans, lee seung hwan, love actually, lunch, milk, myspace, nissan altima, notting hill, Papercraft, parents, pee wee herman, professional chef, random, rice, rock ballads, s, seaweed soup, subway, subway cars, theresa, worship songs

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so i’m a big fan of this show called The Wire. I’ve only finished seasons 1 and 2. But I’m hooked! I’m curious as to why it only lasted 5 seasons, but perhaps the remaining 3 aren’t as good. In any case, this is a great show. For those of us who grew up in and around Baltimore, it’s a magical show; bleak but magical.

I recently read an article on CNN about The Wire and the overly bleak picture the show seems to display regarding the youth in Baltimore. [ref: http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/12/22/the.wire/index.html] And it made me sad.

Is growing up and living in Baltimore that hopeless? No. I know. I’m a college-educated, 20-30something asian american living what most probably consider “upper-middle-class”. But I grew up/worked in some of these neighborhoods.  Whenever I mention that I grew in these neighborhoods, people are shocked.

I was far privileged than many of the characters on the show, but what made me different? Joseph says that sometimes he can’t understand what I’m saying when I’m back in Baltimore talking to some of the “urban locals.”  So it’s definitely not the way I speak.

So what makes me connect to show? ….

My parents used to own a store called “Charles Carryout”. Thanks to Google Maps, I think I found it:

across the street used to be an abandoned lot. People used to park their cars there with no rhyme or reason.  My dad used to park our beat up 12yr old station wagon there. And next to the lot, i don’t remember ANYTHING as nice as the building that is there now, which sort of looks like an office building.

My parents lived above the store. My brother and I lived there on the weekends and summers. It was just a block or so from the projects and the schools were horrible. so my brother and i lived with my grandmother during the week (more on that in a future post perhaps).

what i remember most was running from the station wagon to the store to avoid potential gun fire, lewd comments, and getting harassed. entering the doors, and still being told to run to get behind the bullet proof glass doors that were locked at all times.

my favorite memories were playing ms. pac-man and centipede with some of the neighborhood kids. the guy who owned the video game machines would give us 20+ free credits when he emptied out the bins. other memories included playing/sleeping in tents that fit over the twin sized mattresses our parents bought me and my brother. the huge dogs that lived in the backyard. i only ever got to see them from afar since they were so scary.

just a little insight into my strange but fun childhood

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Post tags: 30something, 5 seasons, asian, brother, building, car, cars, cnn, dad, doors, games, glasses, google, grandmother, gun fire, joseph, kids, lewd comments, locals, locks, maps, memories, office, parents, rhyme, showbiz, sleep, station wagon, upper middle class

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anyways, back to the purpose of this post. since coming back from korea i’ve had a goal to try to play tetris the entire ~30 minute subway ride from start to finish without dying once and also to see how fast i can get to the farthest level possible for me.

i reached the pinnacle of my tetris experience (thus far). i hit level 62, and got very close to level 63. and surpassed the million mark on my ds.

that’s enough applause. thank you. no really thank you. feel free to bask in my pathetic glory =P

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Post tags: ds, nintendo, nintendo ds, subway, tetris

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during the reprimand from the other day (re: day4 post) my cousin mentioned a tour bus that runs through seoul called “seoul city tour” they’ve got 4 different tours. palace, downtown, night and convention tours. we opted for the downtown tour since we thought that would be most interesting for us. the great part about this bus is that if you get a day pass, you can get on and off as you please at any of the stops your ticket is good for.

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a completely no frills tour in a very simple bus. each seat is provided with headphones and a gadget that plays an audio tour of the various stops in various languages.  since joseph has never been to most of the spots, we went on the bus for the entire 2 hour roundtrip so he could hear more about each of the stops and then decide which one(s) we wanted to check out. he said he enjoyed it. i dunno. I didn’t get a headphone for myself, i somehow sat myself down at the only seat on the bus that didn’t have a headset. it was fine, for me it was more orienting myself of various places i used to hang out at and trying to remember what used to be where and when.

after the 2 hour roundtrip, we needed lunch. we’ve been trying to stick to korean food being that korean food in nyc is just so-so and in nyc every other cultural “food” can be found that’s almost if not just as good as the home country. joseph also wanted to check out one fast food chain for a quality check. KFC

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but why KFC of all places? kfc was our non-chinese food choice in china. the chicken was great. joseph thinks it’s because the people who worked at the kfc took pride in what they do and chose select chicken to sell. this maybe true, but for me KFC in china was a nice (God-send) break from the chinese food (i’ve known since the china that i can’t handle eating chinese food for every meal for more than a few days without feeling sick and greasy). i know, i know. kfc is greasy too, but it’s a different kind of greasy. kfc korea wasn’t as good according to joseph. i couldn’t really tell. i’ve rarely eaten fast food in the last 4 or 5 years, especially after reading the book “fast food nation” so my fast food taste buds are happily long gone (in-n-out doesn’t count). but he’s probably right. you’ll know why in a later post.

at lunch we decided that we should go to the national museum. it was a great choice. the museum was cheap (~$3 for the both of us) and HUGE. it took us 2 hours to get through half of the first floor, and the museum has multiple floors. we didn’t get through the first floor after having been there for over 2 hours, it was time to go to meet up with family for dinner. (more on that later.) but the 2+ hours we were there was great. for another $3 you can rent these pda devices which will give you commentary on about 70% of the artifacts/museum peices. the stupid thing drove me nuts for the first 30 minutes because i’m not very patient. you have to walk up to a peice and then let the pda find the commentary in order for the it to play the specific commentary. i didn’t want to wait. i looked at everything but didn’t wait to listen, unless it picked it up almost immediately. (yes. sunggyuk ii geuphae)

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we left the museum without seeing the whole thing. but for $3 who cares, 2-3 hours was more than our monies worth. plus family is more important, especially if you’re getting to meet some family members for the first time!

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meet #1 (yoohyun/cris) and #2 (yoosun/kate) of korean triplet fame. famous in korea since triplets are rare and also because they were featured on tv shows that were played throughout the country. maybe i should’ve asked for their signatures =P jongwook, their dad, is my quiet gadget-loving cousin (blame him for my need of personal technology devices). the kids however, are definitely not quiet which we found out shortly after meeting them. at first they didn’t want to talk to us, scared to say hi since we weren’t so jovial when we first saw them and also scared since we were “foreign”. secondary to the meeting, was dinner of course. we had some amazingly good pork ribs – korean style, what else?

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we ate till we were crazy full, and then tried to “trick” the girls into liking us by bribing them with some ice cream. it worked for about 2 minutes, and then they retreated to their parents and grandparents shortly after gobbling up the ice cream.

hmm..you might be asking, if they’re triplets, what happened to #3? yoomin/kelly spent the day with her other grandparents to help give her parents a break from the craziness of 3 kids at once. for those of you with kids, you know how difficult it is to have just 1 child, imagine having 3 all at the same time, all the same age, and demanding to be treated equally!

no pictures, but #1, #2 and their parents spent the nite at my aunts that nite, and my cousin and i had a few beers together while watching tv. at 7 yrs old, #1 loves beer too. she’s definitely family.

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Post tags: cousin, family, food, headphones, joseph, kfc, korean food, museum, ns, s, seoul, seoul city, tour bus

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so my insurance stinks. it took them forever to approve my MRI. some folks suggested to joseph that i
try calling the insurance company to push my approval through, so I did that. Turns out the insurance co
thought no one put in my request. i’m inclined to believe my doctors office who said they did. the office
also called the insurance company again and was able to get an approval right then and there. soon
after i was able to schedule my MRI. yippee! *sarcasm* so that’s thurs afternoon. the MRI will be used
to determine the final diagnoses of what is likely a sprained MCL. this is pretty standard.

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so what have i been doing in the meantime? working from home. definitely not fun. i much prefer to be
in the office, but that hasn’t been possible since I can’t really bend my knee. and going up and down
stairs has proven to be difficult and painful. that basically means that i can’t ride the subway. i take cabs
to my dr, and take the bus when i’m not in a rush and i’m sure to get 2 seats. one for my butt and the
other to keep my leg elevated.

but i’m scared to take the bus now too. i was sitting in one of the two seaters, and it started to get
crowded. each new person who entered the bus would see the second seat empty from “afar” and think
“whooo… empty seat no one wants!” head over and then be disappointed. one lady said “oh! BUSTED
KNEE!” and kept walking towards the back of the bus in search of another seat. but what made me
scared was actually a woman who didn’t bother to look at the seat before attempting to sit down. she
got pretty close to sitting on my knee. the only thing that stopped her was my hands on her back and
saying “PLEASE DON’T SIT” a number of times.

so this means i don’t leave the house that much. so i’ve been doing this instead:

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an extremely generous friend was kind enough to send me some materials, a circular needle, and a
book! she works for the designer who also authored the book and sells a line of chunky yarns.

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honestly i’ve never worked with chunky yarns before so it was a little awkward. i had to start over a few
times, but eventually i got it and the scarf turned out great! i modified the pattern a bit to fit more my
style (less ruffles and narrower), but it was a fun project! i’ll be starting on a knitted hat from the book
soon too!

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Post tags: insurance company, knee, knitting, mcl, office, scarf, subway

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i got back from a ski trip monday nite. i was originally supposed to come back on sunday, but things did
not work out that way for one reason in particular. i hurt my knee skiing.

after arriving late friday nite, saturday started out great with an early start. we had breakfast, rented
our skis and boards and headed to the resort. it was a bit chilly closer to the top of the mountain due to
the wind, but otherwise conditions were great, and not much ice considering the lack of snow fall and
it’s the east coast which is infamous for ice covered slopes. but the day started turning. first one of my
friends, was run into by a reckless person, and the person took her down (if you can’t handle blue or
black diamonds stay away or stay to the inside of the slope please!). we all gathered to help her get her
skis and poles. sooner after, folks started to head back down including myself, but unfortunately another
friend wasn’t able to get a good start and fell.

too bad i was right behind him, since we had just started out, i ran into him. except it wasn’t just a
basic collision. one of my skis clipped his snowboard and i started doing a split over his head and my
knees, legs and ankles were all in weird positions. eventually i felt a pop in my right knee and one of my
skis coming off. soon after i fell to the ground screaming in pain.

he was able to flag down some folks and ski patrol made its way to me. the ski patrol guys who helped
me were Jim and Bob. (I kept thinking. It’s Jim-Bob. But not sure if they thought it was funny when I
mentioned it, so I didn’t say it again.) Jim-Bob somehow got me to the clinic. I don’t remember much
except being in some serious pain. Getting down the slope was a little bumpy, even with my leg
strapped in tightly, not much could be done.

Folks were nice at the clinic. First some nurses just checked my leg for basic stuff i guess. probably just
things like bleeding, broken limbs, swollenness, etc. then they recommended I go downstairs to see an
orthopedic surgeon. the doctor was nice enough, but he felt a little rough with my leg. he kept picking
up my leg without any sort of warning. that was painful too >_<

after a bit of prodding, picking up and putting down my leg he determined that I tore my MCL and not
my ACL. Which is a relief because if I tore my ACL I may need surgery. He said it’ll likely be about
6 weeks of healing which may or may not require physical therapy. Either way, he wasn’t 100% sure
about either the MCL or ACL, and wanted me to see a Dr in the city, and get an MRI.

So I have an appointment to see an Orthopedic surgeon on Thurs morning. We’ll see what happens from
there. In the meantime, I’m not in much pain and I’m fairly mobile. I sit for most of the day with my leg
elevated and iced. It gets difficult when going up and down stairs, going to the bathroom, taking a bath,
in bed (trying to sleep – restless leg >_<), or standing for extended periods of time. The worst is when
I happen to step in a weird way/angle and i’m shocked at the pain.

Thanks to everyone on the ski trip who helped take care of me! Especially Oli who hung out at the clinic
with me, and delayed her lunch to make sure I was ok.
Thanks to everyone for praying for me!
And Thanks to Joseph for making sure that people knew what was going on and asked people to pray for my
healing.

My fashion sense has never been that great, it’s even worse now

© hehmin for agapeshack, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ankles, jim bob, knees, legs, ski patrol, ski trip, skiing, skis, slopes, snow

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the font types are somewhat limited but still fun
[via: typecaster]

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Post tags: font types, fonts

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many of the readers of this blog don’t read from my site, they read it from their facebook feeds. which
is great. i’m glad to offer up my commentaries in multiple forms in different places. but those same
facebook readers also know that i really despise facebook (via my facebook status). one of the reasons
why i continue to use my facebook account and continue to add friends, etc is because it helps keep me
in touch with some folks and also gets me back in touch with people i haven’t talked to in a really long
time.

but why do i hate facebook? as a friend noted, “hate is such a strong word”. it’s all the horrible apps that
you are required to “install” if you want to see a “gift” someone sent you, or see what movies friends
are interested in, etc. These same apps are close to what I consider adware. Before you can install the
freaking app, it asks you to invite all your friends who don’t already have the app to join in the
craziness. i’m sure many of us have at least one friend who can’t help themselves and just accept every
single app they get invited to. i hate going to those profiles. it half tempts me to “unfriend” them. it’s
like those people who install every “cool” application on their computer they run into and then later
complain about how slow their computer is or how popups don’t stop. i cannot regulate how my friends
use their facebook accounts, but please show some restraint! and don’t just invite everyone to join the
app! (i admit when i first joined facebook i made the same mistakes and i’m sorry to those who got app
requests from me) this was similar beef i had with myspace (which i had hoped would help me get in
touch with people, but unfortunately did not). xanga was alot cleaner and didn’t feel like it was attacking
me everytime i went to someone’s xanga page but not everyone was on xanga and has since quieted a
bit with so many people using facebook instead.

but in any case i would like to have bill as a friend –
BILL COME BACK TO FACEBOOK! LET ME USE YOU AND YOUR PROFILE TO UP MY OWN SELF WORTH!

© hehmin for agapeshack, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bill gates, facebook, facebook apps

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