day 173: resourcefulness and our lock-in

christina and matthew slacking and taking a picture instead of working on prepping crafts... haha j/k

our power outage actually came on a relatively convenient weekend… i mean… it’s never convenient to be without electricity, but of all the weekends this summer… this was one of the better ones (of course it would’ve been even better if it happened while i’m in mexico cuz nobody would be home… my dad’s gonna be in la driving back with my older brother and my little bro and i will be in mexico).  the reason why it was a good weekend is… my little brother really wasn’t home at all this whole weekend… haha he had already planned beforehand to go to the 찜질방 on friday night, and then saturday he had a trip to six flags with the youth group during the day, and then in the afternoon/evening/night, he and i both had a lock-in with our missions team.  so saturday, i was debating whether or not i wanted to go to six flags with the yg, but decided against it… so i was just home chillin before our lock-in.  my dad and i went out to lunch together and then after lunch, he actually went out to like home depot or something and rented one of those really really really super long extension cords haha and we plugged it in to the outlet in the common area for our condo building… like… there are 4 units in our building, and there’s an outlet just outside our door, and we plugged it into there and snaked it all the way to his room and then we plugged in a power strip… and then another power strip went into that one… so we used it to power his computer, our internet modem/router, and his tv and printer and like all the electronics in his room haha and even before we rented that long extension cord, on friday, my dad had put together a bunch of power strips to plug in the stuff in the living room so we could have a light and a fan and our tv on so resourceful haha

technically, we were like… stealing electricity from our condo association cuz, but meh… desperate times call for desperate measures.  honestly, i’m a little surprised that we didn’t like blow a circuit cuz we had a LOT of stuff plugged into that one outlet haha

anyways… so while i was home for a bit on saturday, i was able to get online and watch tv  and then in the evening, i headed over to dr. song’s house where we were having our lock-in.  the lock-in was really good for the most part.  we did a lot of prepping crafts for our trip… we spent so many hours that night just sitting around cutting and punching holes and tracing haha some of the kids complained a bit… but it was a lotta work, and i was pretty proud of most of them.  we also got to practice some skits and played silent football and had some late night 라면 (one of the kids calls it 나면… and he’s in 8th grade… hahaha) and just got to chill.  going into the lock-in, i was really just hoping to be able to hang out with the kids going on the trip, and i think God’s really bringing our team together.  there were a couple of rough spots, and some of the younger boys like… did a really really sloppy job on the crafts cuz they didn’t wanna do it at all… so we’re gonna have to redo some of the stuff, but it’s ok… all a part of the process i suppose  i’m excited to see what God’s gonna do through this team this summer…

day 172: life without electricity…

geese eating at sunset

 

friday, i woke up late… around noon… and our power was out o.O  i asked my little brother what happened, and he said he didn’t know but he heard some man like working on the circuit breaker box outside and then our power went out and then the man left… so i was like… what the… maybe they messed something up… but we had no power, so no lights in the bathroom… which meant… i didn’t shower… haha i just brushed my teeth and washed my face and then i left to go tutor.  after tutoring, i went over to my 할머니’s place, cuz a week ago, she forgot to give her offering to my dad to give to the church… my grandma hasn’t been able to attend church for a while now, cuz her doctor told her that if she keeps going up and down stairs, she’s gonna have to start using a cane cuz it’s bad for her back and her knees, and at our church, there are no handicap access ramps anywhere… and you have to climb stairs to get up to the main sanctuary and then stairs down to the fellowship hall and stuff… so yeah she just listens to sermons from home, and she sends her tithe to church through my dad.  anywho… she forgot to give it to my dad when she came over last friday, so she asked me to go get it from her.  when i went to her place, she offered me some food, so i ate a little bit there, and she made some 떡보끼 for me to take home too

afterwards, i met up with connie at caribou coffee, and we chilled here for a bit… and i got a call from my dad and he told me that the power was still out… and basically… i found out that the power was out because the power company SHUT OUR POWER DOWN!  haha apparently, my dad forgot to pay the bill last month, and they sent him a notice through the mail that he never got, and so like… our account was delinquent and they just shut off the power… he called them when he got home from work and he made the payment and everything, but then they said that all their techs were off for the weekend so they weren’t gonna turn our power back on till monday or maybe even tuesday! -..- major fail… haha so my dad told me i should stay out of the house if i can haha

anyways… so connie and i had dinner at taco bell AGAIN! cuz she wanted some haha and then we went over to best buy cuz she wanted to get an itrip for her car.  we got the itrip, which works really really well, btw, so i guess you really do get what you pay for… they’re expensive, but really good quality.  and then we went to the glen to go take a walk and sit by the pond and watch the sunset.  it was nice going out there… the lake was peaceful as usual… and it was nice to go out and take pictures in nature again… feel like i haven’t really done that very much at all since i got back to chicago.  while we were out by the pond, i couldn’t help but notice that there were couples like everywhere i looked haha… not just people couples… although there were at least like 5-6 other couples we saw there… but the ducks, the geese, these swallows that nested in like… this roof structure thing on the dock, and even DRAGONFLIES haha (oh and of course for the ducks, there was like one male pimp with 3 duckettes following him around haha) so much love in the air haha

after we sat by the pond for a while, we kept walking up the path to this gazebo up on a hill, and we watched the sunset from there and took some pictures.  and while we were up there, connie wrote a little something on one of the ledges with her pen haha… vandalizing!

after the glen, i still didn’t wanna go home cuz it was gonna be hot and no ac and no tv, no internet, no light, no anything there… so we went to dunkin robbins on dempster to go chill there and get online.  we were there for a few hours when jonny called me and asked if he could take the car for the night cuz he was gonna go to the new 찜질방 that they opened in the suburbs here (well… relatively new… i think it’s been around for a few months now… maybe even close to a year?) and they were gonna spend the night there… so we packed up our stuff and drove over to pick up connie’s car from lakeview, and then to red mango where jonny was with his friends, and i gave him my car, and then we drove BACK to dunkin robbins and stayed there for another few hours and then finally went home… haha

it’s crazy how dependent we are on electricity… feel so helpless without it.  actually on friday night, when i got home… i took advantage of the time with no tv and no internet by catching up on blogging by writing out these blogs on microsoft word so i could just copy-paste later haha.  thank God it was a pretty cool, breezy night and not one of those hot, muggy ones

day 171: connipher day

connie and me on the boat with the best skyline in the world as a backdrop

the chicago skyline... sears tower on the left, trump in the center, and john hancock on the right

:)

7/8 is a bit of a special day for connie and me… 5 years ago, today, was the day we first started dating… obviously, there were some rough patches in the middle, so it hasn’t really been 5 years of us being together, but we decided to go celebrate a bit anyway.  so after she got off work, we met up and went to the train station and took the train out to the city.  we ended up taking one of the architecture boat tours through chicago.  this was wendella’s sunset tour, and the person selling the tickets at the little booth said that it stops in front of grant park’s buckingham fountain for a light show and then comes back.  it’s a 2 hour boat ride, and i was really excited to be able to see the city from the lake at sunset and to be able to catch the light show.  the sky was amazing when we got on the boat at around 7:45, so i was extra excited.

anywho, we got on and the tour was great, of course, and the city of chicago never ceases to amaze me… unfortunately, though, the sky ended up being toooooo cloudy to get a good view of the sunset actually, the clouds along the horizon were really thick and dark, so we didn’t get to see much of a sunset at all, but it was a good time with connie… and when we stopped at buckingham fountain, we were there for like a minute… and it definitely wasn’t a light show… haha we just saw the fountain from a distance and stopped there for a bit and left :\ haha but even with those light disappointments, the tour was great.  got to take some pictures with connie with the beautiful chicago skyline in the background and just got to spend a good two hours with here out on the lake  anybody who comes to visit chicago should definitely check out wendella’s boat tours cuz they’re awesome and relatively cheap.  you learn so much about chicago’s history on those tours… it’s awesome.  a couple of the new things i learned today:

• chicago is home to the 2nd largest (not tallest) building in america next to the pentagon
• there’s a whole like… neighborhood in chicago that was developed from landfill.  a man built a house on this little island-ish thing just off the coast in the lake and in order to connect that little piece of land with the rest of chicago, he asked builders who were developing on the coast to dump their garbage in the lake between his island and the shore… and he connected it and then he claimed that land as his own and said it was like… separate from chicago, because technically it was outside the jurisdiction of chicago, and he eventually sold off a bunch of that land at really high prices.  it’s one of the nicest, priciest areas in chicago now, cuz it’s right on the lakefront o.O
• there’s only one building that is east of lake shore drive in chicago
• we can thank montgomery ward for the awesome parks and greenery in chicago, because he personally fought a long, hard battle against the city of chicago with his own money to set aside parts of chicago to remain undeveloped

ok so during the boat tour, connie kept saying that she was getting bit by all these mosquitoes and she was like itching all over her arms and legs… and i kept telling her to stop scratching them, but she was like really really itchy.  anywho, towards the end of the tour, she was looking at her arms and stuff and she realized that she was breaking out in hives!  we still have no idea what she was having an allergic reaction to, but it was definitely hives, and it was like all over her arms and legs… so as soon as we got off the boat, we started heading back to the train station and we stopped at a walgreens to get her some benadryl.  i was a little torn between benadryl and cortisone (anti-itch cream), cuz it seemed like her allergic reaction wasn’t really gonna get much worse than it was… so i texted sarah chang to ask what we should do and she advised us to definitely get the benadryl and that we could get cortisone to treat the itchiness as well, but we definitely needed to get the benadryl… haha so we bought benadryl and then we kept walking a bit and then we realized we didn’t have anything to drink to take the pills, so we stopped again at another walgreens along the way to get a bottle of water and she took the medicine (i think this was only her 2nd or 3rd time taking pills ever haha thank God i forced her to learn to take pills before ).  ok so after our second stop at a walgreens, we were walking to the train station and i couldn’t remember if the train was at 10:25 or at 10:35, and we were cutting it really close to our train’s departure time… so we hurried to the station, and we made it there like 2-3 minutes before our train left  if we missed that train, we would’ve had to wait till 12:30 to take the last train that goes to the station by my house haha so it was definitely a good thing that we made it there in time.  it was extra good, cuz connie passed out on the train.  the benadryl made her really drowsy, and she was knocked out… haha to be honest… when we got back to glenview, i was a little worried about her driving home, but she made it home safely  twas another good day in the city of chicago, as always.  i’m so thankful to live here… and i’m thankful for you, conch

oh yeah, she colored a picture of spiderman for me at work today haha and she wrote me a little note on the back hahaha

day 170: blessed

not too much to write about for wednesday.  i went to college group as usual on wednesday night, and tonight we got into a discussion about what it means to be “blessed.”  the passage we read was psalm 84, and like so many other passages in scripture, it says “blessed are those who…” and “blessed is the man who…”  so naturally, that leads to the question of… what exactly does it mean to be blessed?  and furthermore, what does it mean when we sing songs like “blessed be the name of the Lord”?  does blessed mean the same thing in both contexts?  i think in christian circles, there’s a lotta “christian lingo” that just gets thrown around, like the words “blessed”, or “grace”, or even “saved”, and it’s not right for us to just go on tossing those terms around without really know what exactly we mean when we say them.  and i’m really really not pointing fingers, because i’m personally struggling through what it means when i use those words too… i mean earlier this spring, i shared on this blog that i was going through a phase where i was trying to figure out what God’s grace is all about, and on wednesday night, i was in the same boat with everyone else, struggling to figure out what it means to be blessed… anywho… i have my thoughts, and i shared some of them on wednesday night, but i wanna get some feedback from those of you who read this and see what y’all think about this whole thing.

what does it mean to be blessed?  what does it mean to bless God or to bless His name?  does blessed mean the same thing in both contexts?

please please please leave some feedback

ok so beyond the bible study, for the second week in a row, chanhan and i got paired up as prayer partners, and i really like our little talks together, and this week, we both decided that we needed to take more action as accountability partners this week, so i’ve committed this week to do my quiet time every day before i touch my computer y’all can keep me accountable to that, too!  there were some other things we talked about as well, but nothing i can share publicly haha anywho, i’m thankful for good brothers like chanhan

inception

ok so i was at dinner last night with my family and a few other families… this was actually at the same house where i was so encouraged last time about the adults’ perspective on all the church issues and how much it has changed in the past few years… anywho… while i was sitting there listening in on their conversation, i made a huge connection with the ending of the movie, inception.  if you haven’t seen it yet, this is your spoiler alert, because i’m talking about like… the very end of the movie…

anyway, so this conversation started with my dad saying that someone a few weeks back was talking about like the days when they were in elementary school… and my dad realized that that was FORTY years ago haha and how it’s so ridiculous that that much time has gone by.  and then mr. ha said that like… if you think about it… they’ve been going to church for probably almost just as long.. my dad started going to church when he was in middle school, and mr. ha is about ten years younger and he’s been going to church his whole life i think… anyway.. he’s like… yeah and during those forty years, we probably went to church about twice a week, on fridays and sundays, well really it was probably more, but let’s just say it was about twice a week… and that’s a crazy number of days spent at church… and how much have we really done?

and then he shared that it was just in this past year that he started making a lot of realizations… and one of them was that… when Jesus Christ died for us on the cross, he wasn’t doing it to save our lives… the invitation wasn’t, hey i’m going to die for you to save your life… his invitation was… i’m going to die for you… and now i’m coming after you to kill you, too.  haha yes that’s a shocker… and maybe that sounds really extreme, but wasn’t his invitation for us to die with Him?

ok so i’m gonna make a little detour so that i can make the connection with inception.  so at the end of the movie, when leo dicaprio is talking to his dead wife, and she keeps asking him to commit suicide with her, and he keeps telling her that they can’t, because of the kids, and because this is reality and she’s making a mistake… and all the while, she keeps asking him to die with her because of the idea that he planted in her mind… well, at least that’s his version of it.. at the end of the movie, everyone’s left wondering who was right… leo, or his wife?  if his wife was right, then maybe LEO had an idea incepted into his mind, saying that the life that he was living was reality even though it was a dream.  anyway… so finally here’s the connection, if you haven’t already made it yourself.. Jesus is like leo’s wife, inviting us to die with Him so that we can stop living in this false reality, but we’re like leo.  he refuses to the very end to do it, because he’s convinced that the life that he’s living is reality.  and really there’s no way to know who’s right and who’s wrong until you take the plunge… if he jumps off that hotel ledge with his wife and she was wrong, then they’re both dead for nothing.  if he jumps off and she was right, then they return to reality.  in the same way, with our faith, we have to take the plunge.  we can never be completely sure if we’re right or wrong until we jump head first and commit to following Christ completely.  and satan incepts that idea into our minds, convincing us that THIS life is the one that’s important… this is all of reality, and that we need to live for the here and now.  but the good news here… and the big difference in this comparison, is that leo and his wife were peers.  they both had the same information and therefore, one theory was just as good as the other.  in our relationship with christ, though, He’s GOD!  haha He knows everything.  of course believing that also requires faith, but if we claim to believe that He is truly the one and only God, then the decision to follow Him wherever He leads us should be a simple one.

He died, so that we can follow Him in his death.  it’s not that He died and now we can live a happier life… He died, and if we follow Him, we will die, too, and therefore… this life is not the one that all of our hope hangs on… that’s why even when everything in our lives falls apart, we can still have that hope!  because the hope is not in something in this world.  we’ve already died to this world if we’re real followers of Christ.  so yes, we might be happier in the midst of all of the chaos in our lives, but that wasn’t the end goal… it’s just a side effect of being a believer.

ok i’m in a bit of a time crunch, and i just woke up like 45 minutes ago, so i’m still a little groggy… but i hope this all made sense… i’ll probably read it over again later to day and make some edits if i need to…

Jesus is inviting every one of us to die with Him TODAY… are you willing to take the dive?  i need to be reminded of that every day… so many days go by with me mindlessly going through the motions… but 30 years from now, i don’t wanna look back and feel like i should’ve done more and taken advantage of more of the opportunities that i had.  the difference between us and the forefathers of our faith, like abraham and david and isaac is not that they were awesome, upright people and therefore God was able to use them in greater ways than he uses us… they were just as messed up as we are… they were just more willing to obey when Jesus called on them…

day 169: cyc photo shoot

so many of the pictures i took that night turned out blurry blegh.. i suck.. haha but here's what i think was the best one...

tuesday.

the 4th of july fiasco is finally officially over.  no more fireworks till next year.  EXCEPT at navy pier!  haha where they have fireworks i think every wednesday and saturday night during the summer?  i might be wrong about that… but anywho… they don’t have fireworks on tuesday nights, haha BUT i did go to navy pier.  it was a bit unexpected… but cyc (our yg) has a weekly hang out thing on tuesday nights, and i decided to go.  nobody really knew exactly what we were gonna do except pj… none of the other yg leaders even knew… haha but when pj arrived at church, he announced that we were gonna go to navy pier in the city!  so we all hopped in the van… squeezed in… and i was sweating in the backseat haha and we drove out to navy pier, and we were planning on renting bikes and riding them around the city.  it was probably about 7:30 or 8 by the time we got there, and the bike rental place said that they weren’t renting out their 4-person bikes anymore for that night… and they said that for ANY of the bikes, you need to be 18 or older or have a parent or legal guardian with you!  i’ve never rented bikes from there before, but kenneth and connie said that they went there with the yg when they were in high school and there was no rule like that so it must’ve been a recent development…

if you remember… last week for their hang out, the yg was supposed to go bowling and those plans fell through so we went to flick park to play softball… haha and this week, for the second week in a row, the plans failed  haha so instead of riding bikes, we went to the food court to grab some food and then we just walked down to the end of the pier and we took some pictures out there  the city of chicago is freaking amazing… gahhhh i love it.  and apparently, navy pier is like… the most popular tourist attraction in chicago.  according to this website, it’s the 10th most popular attraction in america, but i’m thinking that’s probably cuz it’s free… haha i mean there’s lots of expensive, overpriced things to do there, but you can visit it for free

pictures from our photo shoot will be up on my zenfolio sometime soon, hopefully… haha here’s just one sample

day 168: fireworks round 3??? o.O

fireworks in glenview on the 5th of july

*edit* so i almost gave up on project 365… and right now i’m about 6-7 weeks behind… but i have like a week’s worth of posts already written from back at the beginning of july… well there’s no way that i’m actually going to catch up and remember all the things that happened the past 6-7 weeks, but i also don’t wanna give up on this blog, so i’m just gonna post the ones that i had drafts for already and then gonna continue from probably sometime earlier this week.  sorry i’ve been so lazy

lotsa people were off work monday cuz the 4^th of july was on a sunday, and that “lotsa people” included connie and my dad (and i always have mondays off haha), so monday, my dad and little brother decided to go to brunch at walker brothers.  they asked if i wanted to join them, but we had SO much food in our fridge… like leftovers from friday’s dinner and just a lotta other random stuff, and i didn’t want all that to go to waste, so i told them i’d rather stay home and save money and eat the stuff in the fridge.  they went anyway haha but i ate at home and it was GOOD haha i had all that food all over again   and then at around 2:30, connie came over, and we were gonna work out as soon as she got here, but we were both feeling really really lazy and tired, so we didn’t.. haha

i honestly don’t really remember what we did instead… except i had to drive my little brother to his girlfriend’s house where they were having a 4^th of july party and then watching fireworks (glenview decided to have the fireworks on the 5^th cuz the 4^th was on a sunday) and then when we got back home, she brought her box of bracelet floss (used for friendship bracelets) from her car and she started working on my new bracelet   i picked out some colors and she started making it, and then we popped in a movie (she picked a lot like love), but i was too tired, so i told her i was just gonna nap… haha so i took a nap on the futon while she watched the movie and made the bracelet.. and i woke up to see the last like… 20 minutes of the movie or so…

anywho… after i woke up, we finished the movie and then we finally decided that we should work out.  we decided to do yoga x that day even though that’s like the longest work out.. haha we started at around 7:30 and we didn’t finish till just after 9, and the fireworks in glenview were starting right around then, so we drove out and heard the fireworks going off as we left my house.  we went to go find a spot where we could watch… i was thinking about trying to go to the glen so we could go out by the lake and watch from there, but a lotta the fireworks were really low, so i didn’t know if we’d be able to see very well from the glen, which is about a mile or two away.  the fireworks were shot from a spot really close to my house, so we didn’t have to go very far… we just drove down the street and parked the car on the side and watched.  i took some more pictures and she just sat like in the window of my car door and watched from there.

after the fireworks (i think glenview’s was the best of the three shows we saw, btw haha), we decided to head over to the glen, so we went and took a walk by the lake and we ended up on a little dock area out on the lake, and there was an older couple already out there sitting on one of the benches.  we asked if they saw the fireworks from there, and they said, “yeah it was an amazing view.  we’re definitely coming back here next year!”  man.. i wish i’d taken the risk and gone to the glen to watch haha but it’s ok… there’s always next year   that couple also told us we shouldn’t tell too many people so it doesn’t get too crowded out there hahaha anyway… connie and i stood out there for about an hour… it was a pretty breezy night and it was so calm and quiet…. gahhhh perfect spot and a perfect night.. and we could see the ends of a buncha different fireworks shows in like a couple different places nearby from there… what a perfect ending to the night…

i also decided that connie and i need to spend some more summer nights out on that dock… it’s just too good to let opportunities like that go to waste

round 3 of fireworks for independence day 2010!  connie and i never watched fireworks together before this year, but we got three nights in a row this time! haha

day 167: fireworks round 2 and big brother problems

my girlfriend's creepy face... :/

michelle oh's creepy face... :/

so at the fair in mt. prospect at melas park, one of the prizes for the basketball game there was this huge, pink, DUKE basketball thing. haha it was quite strange to see a duke ball as the prize up here in illinois. maybe cuz we're national champs

fireworks at melas park. i think this was my favorite shot from the 4th of july weekend this year.

4^th of july!  after church, i headed over to the vision center with connie and anna to hang out with some of the youth group kids who were playing basketball.  i mostly just watched and took some pictures of some of the other people who were just hanging out in the gym, but after some of the yg guys finished their game… err dispersed after a “water break,” pj, brian jun, and i played a game of 21.  while we were playing, a bunch of the yg kids left, and we ended up just calling it quits with the scores at 16, 13, and 8?  something like that… and surprisingly, i was in the lead! haha it was only cuz brian jun missed his free throw at 20 points and dropped back down to 13 haha but anywho, afterwards, the yg kids were going to the beach, and my little brother asked me if he could take the car, and i said no, but i’d give them a ride if they needed it… to be honest… i got pretty upset with my younger brother that day… let me warn you, the next huge paragraph is mostly just a rant, so feel free to skip over it if you’d like haha

it seems like he thinks that my car is his car or that i have some obligation to let him drive it whenever he wants, or that if i don’t let him just take it, i have an obligation to give him a ride to wherever he wants to go.  he kept giving me this exasperated look when i told him that he couldn’t take my car.  ok so here’s how everything went down… i told him that i MIGHT go with them but that he couldn’t take my car… but then for some reason, a bunch of the other kids left to go like 10-15 minutes before we stopped playing basketball, and my little brother had told two kids that we could take them to the beach too… so when we stopped playing, i asked him what they were gonna do if i decided not to go to the beach, and he said, “well then i guess they’re gonna go home too”  so basically he put me in a really crappy spot where i had to at least give them a ride, cuz i’m not gonna make two kids who aren’t my brother just go home and not get to go to the beach cuz of me… but then when we got out to the car, i found out that there were two other guys driving who were also going to the beach and each of them only had one other person in their cars… and then when we were standing at my car, my little brother was like… “oh, can we pick up grace on the way, too?”  grace is his girlfriend, btw.  sooooo we picked up grace and then i drove them to the beach, but i really didn’t wanna go to the beach that day, so connie and i just dropped them off and then went back near my house to caribou to read a little.  jonny had told me that they were planning on going to the beach till about 5-5:30 and then they were gonna go to karaoke by about 6, and jonny had a 4^th of july party to go to at 7.  anyway… according to him, everyone was planning on leaving the beach by about 5, so at 4:15, he calls me and asks if i was gonna go pick them up at 5, so i asked if there was nobody else there who could give them a ride back, and he tells me that the rest of them decided not to karaoke and they were gonna stay till 6.  i said that he should just come back at 6 with them anyway, and then he tells me that grace needs to be back by 5:15 at the latest and that he doesn’t want to ask ben for a ride back, because ben lives close to the beach and he doesn’t wanna make him drive “all the way” to our house (we live like 7 minutes from where ben lives and ben lives about 7 minutes from the beach… -..-)  anyway, i got in an argument with him, because basically, he made me drive them to and from the beach only because he wanted his girlfriend grace there… he could’ve easily gotten a ride to the beach with one of the two guys who were leaving church at the same time as us, but he didn’t cuz he wanted to ask me to pick up grace on the way… and then he easily could’ve gotten a ride back with someone at 6, but then i needed to go drive another 15 minutes there and 15 minutes back cuz grace needed to be back by 5:15.  and the worst part of all was that… he didn’t ask me if we could pick up grace till we were standing at my car and he also didn’t tell me she needed to be back by 5:15 till he called me asking for a ride back… ugh i was so frustrated… and then on top of all of that… he was arguing with me to justify himself and saying that it was partially my fault too…

i think i did a pretty good job of not yelling at him… i was just explaining to him why he was wrong and why he shouldn’t have done what he did and he kept arguing back that he wasn’t completely in the wrong… and at one point, he even said that i could’ve avoided all this mess if i’d just let him take my car… as if he was doing me a favor by taking my car -..- blegh… and it is true that connie could’ve driven us and i didn’t necessarily NEED my car, but part of the reason why i didn’t let him take it that day is because… it’s my car… and the past few weeks, i’ve noticed that he’s started to make plans on his own, expecting me to let him drive my car since connie can give me a ride when we go hang out after church, and he doesn’t actually wait to get my permission… i dunno… i’m trying to be a good older brother… and i feel like that doesn’t mean i always give him what he wants… but sometimes it’s hard to tell when i’m just being unreasonable and when i’m keeping him from being spoiled and overstepping his boundaries…

anywho, enough of my rant… after that whole ordeal, connie, jonny, and i came home.  connie and i played some chain rxn on my computer (it was my first time) and then i cut up some mangoes, and then roger and shirley came over for a little while.  and then when we left, shirley split from us cuz she went over to john park’s house with shim shady and maybe a few other people?  and they were gonna go chill at john’s place, but roger, connie, and i went to melas park in mt prospect to watch fireworks there!  we met up with chris sullivan and daniel chung and watched fireworks from an AMAZING spot.  we were like right up close right in on the action, and i brought a tripod to try to catch some cool pictures of the fireworks that day   i also got eaten alive by mosquitoes while we were watching haha

after the fireworks, we went to denny’s where the ac was broken -..- fail… and they were like… understaffed and a lotta people in there complained… i felt really bad for the manager who seemed like a really nice guy and was really apologetic for the ac and the slow service, but some people were just really mean and rude anyway :\ it’s the 4^th of july, people!  a day when we’re supposed to celebrate our independence and all the freedoms we have in this country… i guess it’s those freedoms that taught us to be spoiled… :\ anyway, i felt really bad for the workers, too, so i tried to tip our waitress fairly generously, and i tipped this bus boy who was working his butt off and was sweating bullets cuz the ac was broken… honestly, when i left, i kinda regretted not giving him more… i only gave him a few bucks, but even like 1 or 2 more dollars would’ve made a huge difference… i learned to tip generously from my dad… and i love his reasoning.  most of the time when you go out to eat at a place like denny’s or friday’s or even at the cheesecake factory or something, the difference between a 15% tip and 20% tip is like a dollar or two (especially if you’re only paying for one or two people)  and the difference between a 20% tip and a 25% tip is a dollar or two… so to me… paying an extra dollar for a meal is NOT that big of a deal… paying an extra 2 dollars also is not a huge deal… but to the waiter or waitress, the difference between a 15% tip and a 25% tip is HUGE.  so why not make someone’s day and make them happy when it costs you so little?  i told connie this too, but when we were standing at the front of the restaurant waiting for the rest of our group to pay for their food, i wanted to yell at everyone in the restaurant and tell them to tip generously cuz it’s the 4^th of july… but i chickened out… i regret that, too :\

round two of fireworks for independence day 2010

day 166: fireworks round 1

wow... so beautiful... eliza, anna, connie

fireworks round 1

on saturday, after the missions meeting, we had a brief meeting amongst the leaders of the team to plan for our lock-in which is coming up in a week (july 10^th) and to take care of some other planning stuff for the trip.  after that, i went over to pastor jason’s house (our youth pastor) cuz the youth group was having a pot luck and then going to watch fireworks.  kenneth, shirley, anna, and connie were all there, too.  i was the last one to get there, and i bought some watermelon on the way and i also brought some peaches and strawberries and a veggie tray that was left over from our missions meeting.

hmmm the night as a whole was a lotta fun.  i’m glad i’m around to get to hang out with these  youth group kids and to help out where i can… i mean… honestly i haven’t really done much to actually help with any planning or anything for them, so i feel like i’m going just cuz it’s fun to hang out with them, but if pj ever asks me to help them out with anything, it’ll always help to have some kinda relationship with them first   yeah so we ate a buncha food… i didn’t really eat too much cuz i wasn’t that hungry, and then we went to the arlington track errrr near there to watch the fireworks.  we got there about an hour before the fireworks started, and while we were waiting, some of the kids were playing boom-chicka-boom-boom (our yg kids love that game and they can play it for so long…)  but those of us who didn’t wanna play that game played 20 instead   haha it was so fun, as usual, and we decided that we’d give a punishment to the first person to reach 20 strikes or to whoever had the most strikes when the fireworks started.  and the punishment we chose was… i found this pretty big blade of grass that had like a buncha holes where bugs had eaten it and so the loser had to eat that blade of grass hahaha at first, it looked like kenneth was gonna be the loser, but then pj (pastor jason) caught up to him, mainly cuz he kept challenging esther, and she kept getting him to mess up hahaha it was pretty funny.  so by the end, pj and kenneth actually were tied, so they had to eat the blade of grass TOGETHER! haha epic   and the fireworks were fun… it was the very first time that connie and i watched fireworks together, cuz we’ve never been together on the 4^th of july… so that was pretty cool   after the fireworks, it took forever to drive back to church cuz traffic was terrible leaving that place, but we made it back safely.  esther, jonny, and brian jun rode in my car, and on the way back, we played mad gab.  everyone should have games in your car like catch phrase and mad gab.  great idea, chris!  haha

round 1 of fireworks for independence day 2010

day 165: grandpa’s day

this is a picture of my grandpa that my 할머니 has hung up at her place. she carries it with her whenever we get together to celebrate this day

friday was kind of a special family day, it was the anniversary of when my 할아버지 passed away… i never got a chance to meet him.  he actually passed away when my dad was only 16… which is how old my little brother is now, but from what i hear, i think he was an awesome man… apparently, he was pretty small… like short and skinny but he was a boxer! haha lightweight of course, but yeah it would’ve been pretty cool to meet him… and i wonder how different i’d be… and how different my dad would be too o.O  anywho, we get together every year to remember him and in the past few years, my dad and 할머니 and 고모s have shared a little bit about what they remember about him and stuff, so it’s nice

ermmm so in order to get ready for this get-together at my house for dinner, i went to my 할머니’s place at like… 4ish to pick her up and then we went to pick up some of the food from “asia super,” one of the korean grocery stores in the area… we bought 불고기, 돼지 불고기, 꽁치, and 고추… well i bought it cuz my 할머니 wanted to stay in the car haha anywho… the gas in my car was running really really low and it was a hot day, so i had to keep the ac on and the engine running since my 할머니 was waiting in the car… so i like dashed into the store and got everything as quickly as i could and paid for it and left… my dad had pre-ordered the 불고기 and 꽁치 and he ordered a LOT of it haha so it made it pretty quick… just had to get the 돼지 불고기 and 고추.

well anywho… i got back in the car and then we drove home and when we got home, i started washing dishes cuz our sink was full and we were gonna have to start cooking soon.  oh yeah and on the way home, some of the 불고기 juice like… spilled out onto the back seat of my car… it was only a little, so no big deal, but i had to wipe that down… but i felt like i was just spreading it -..- haha anyways, so as i’m washing the dishes, my 할머니 is getting some other stuff ready and then a little later she starts pulling out the stuff from the grocery bags (she had also brought over some stuff) and then she pulls out the 돼지 불고기 and she’s like… what’s this?  and my dad was standing in the kitchen, too… and then she was like… why did you buy the one that’s not marinated?  haha well… since i was in a hurry when i was buying the stuff, i was looking through all the stuff in the meat section and i found this package of 고기 that was labeled 돼지 불고기… and i didn’t see anything else with that label… honestly… in my mind, i was like hmmm this doesn’t look like it’s marinated, but i bought it anyway… and of course it was the wrong thing, so my dad was a little upset and he sent me back to go get the right one… haha so after i finished washing the dishes, i got back in the car with like my almost empty tank of gas and went to return the one i bought and get the marinated one… fail…

so then i was just chillin and waiting for everyone else to get to our place, and joann, one of my younger cousins, was the only cousin who came, cuz jeannie had just had her baby, peter 형 was in vegas, and johnny 형 is in kenya, and paul is in l.a.  so it was a pretty meager family gathering, BUT i hadn’t seen joann literally in years… haha i can’t believe how long it’s been… she spent the last year and a half or so in japan/korea/all over southeast asia going to school for design… and she was having a blast out there, and she finally got back at the beginning of 2010 and this was my first time seeing her!  haha

after everyone got to our place, we sang a hymn in korean and my 할머니 prayed and then said a few words and then that was pretty much it… then we ate.  it was fun, cuz since there weren’t too many of us, we all sat together at our dining table and ate.  and the food was awesome, of course haha i love 불고기 and 돼지 불고기.  kinda interesting story though… so while i was eating, i took a piece of 상추 and ripped it in half cuz it was one of the big ones, and i ate the top part with some 밥 and 고기 and then i reached for the bottom half of the 상추 and i was about to put my 밥 on it when i noticed this kinda… black-ish spot in this little part where the leaf was kinda folded over.  it was down towards the bottom of the leaf, so it’s like where it’s kinda stiff.  so i opened up that little part to see what it was, and there was a dead bug sitting right in there!  i like jumped a little and the rest of my family saw me and they were like what is it?  i didn’t wanna freak anyone out but… i had to tell them now cuz they all saw me react to it so i told them that there was a dead bug in my 상추 and i got up to throw it away.  bleghhhh i’m so so so so sooooooo glad i saw that black spot and i didn’t just eat it… hahaha oh man it wasn’t even like a tiny little but… it was probably the size of a big fly or a small cricket… omg can’t even imagine what it would’ve tasted like if i just ate it without knowing it was in there…

ok so after dinner, we had some cool desserts… well we had ice cream from oberweis, which isn’t that cool… well i guess it’s literally cool haha (connie, i know you like that one haha) but my 작은 고모 brought over these mochi 떡 things that were wrapped in some kinda leaves… i dunno exactly what kinda leaf it was but it was just like… 떡 with red bean paste in it and it was wrapped up in the leaves and tied up and stuff… anyway, it was pretty good.  the 떡 kinda tasted like green tea too   and then after dessert we were all chillin and my 고모s were cleaning in the kitchen and our set of cutco knives was sitting on the kitchen counter, and my 작은 고모 was like… man you guys have a lot of these knives.  i only have like 2 of them… and they’re the two smallest ones (the paring knife and spatula spreader) and so we talked a bit and i told them both that my dad bought a bunch of them from me when i was selling them cuz he was planning on giving them to real estate clients as gifts but he never did and i knew they were sitting around somewhere.  anywho, i went and found them and i ended up giving each of them one of the chef’s knives and they didn’t wanna take it for free, cuz apparently, in korea, they say you’re not supposed to get a knife for free… so they paid my dad 10 dollars each for like a 90 dollar knife haha   sorry for giving away the knives you paid for, 아빠, but you weren’t really doing anything with them anyway haha