Happy New Year! It’s been over a month since I updated but it sure doesn’t feel like it. Of course I’ve been busy with the Finals and the whole break, so time to update.
My Finals schedule was a bit hectic. I had article assignments, a final test, and chapter review questions for MicroEcon on Monday. The English Final Paper was due on Tuesday, along with the Sociology Final. Wendsday was the Statistics Final, the only real cumulative one other than sociology in this semester. And a Computer Information Systems project due on Thursday. By the time the finals was over, I was dead tired. It was a grueling week of studying and testing, but in the end I was satisfied with myself. I felt I did ok. In the beginning of the semester I was worried about the English and Economics class, but in the end, I was worried more about the Sociology and Statistics class. I wasn’t quite sure how the Stat final went. So I was really anxious to find out what I had gotten. I finished on the 16th and found out I got straight As on the 11th of Jan. It was a good moment to find out, too, since I was in Germany for a while and I was sure by then the grades were posted but I had no internet connection.
I got home on Thursday night and on the 17th the Friday I went to Whitney to pick up a couple of official transcripts and I met up with Mrs Charmack, Mr Z, Mr Bohannon and Mr McHatton. It was nice seeing them again and I think only Mr McHatton and Mr Z actually remembered my name but it was a short but sweet visit. I went to TaeKwonDo potluck during the night and we hung out afterwards at Denny’s. It was nice just to chill and not really worry about anything, something I haven’t been able to do since… winter break 2002. A lot of the next few days were spent just hanging out. A couple days I was really able to relax, sit home, watch a few movies and just blank out my mind. I didn’t have a worry in the world, except for the grade report. Matt and Sung and I later went snowboarding at Mountain High on the 22nd or so. It was just my second time going, but I feel like I’m getting better. I still can’t carve, but I can kind of go on my toes at a slow speed. I think if I go 3 or 4 more times I’ll catch on to it now. I ate it a couple times though, and my ass was freezing from all the snow I managed to get in there. Matt dared me to go on a few jumps and I fell on my tailbone. The second time he told me I had to redeem myself, but instead of doing that I landed on my tailbone again. It hurt… a lot.
Amazingly, I watched one movie at the theatres, Meet the Fockers. I really liked this one, too. I think it was on par with Meet the Parents. Some people don’t like Ben Stiller for some reason, I think he’s ingenious. That guy is so original. I spent some time with Matt Mck and Jason, playing Lord of the Rings Risk while watching the extended edition of Return of the Kings on TV. We also watched Shaun of the Dead. Great movie, but I found out I can’t quite understand British accent very well.
Christmas Eve, I didn’t do much all morning but I did get to meet up with Sean that night. He was visiting his mom at Hawaiian Gardens and I had a bottle of beer and we just hung around for a couple hours at this Mexican neighbor’s house before taking off. It was a couple hours but it felt a lot shorter than that.
Sung and Matt and I watched the Lakers vs Heat game on Christmas day. The Kobe vs Shaq hype was for real as it was really interesting to see the two superstars just going at it. I got a ride down to Mission Viejo with Tommy for a little family reunion and for dinner. Christmas was not too exciting. We exchanged our gifts. Matt got me a shotglass from West Point, and Sung got me a BB pistol from Big 5. I got them both similar Tshirts with a monkey. Sung’s was a monkey holding a dynamite on one arm, with the words ‘slow learner’ on the bottom. Matt’s was a monkey drinking hot sauce in front with words ‘smile now’ and a monkey farting out fire with the words ‘cry later’ on it.
My cousin Albert decided to get a tube amp, a Marshall TSL 602 for himself. It’s huge, weighs a ton but the amp itself is really sweet. I brought down my Fender American Telecaster with me so we can both jam, but I don’t think I’m going to do that anymore. The guitar itself really is a pain to carry around. It’s no piano, but it was still cumbersome to carry that and a couple luggage as well.
I wasn’t actually gonna go to Germany but after about a week of relaxing at home I felt compelled to go visit my brother. It was a last minute decision and I bought my ticket a week before heading off but the ticket was still relatively cheap. I couldn’t get any sleep on my way there, though. But it was definitely worth it. On the way there, north of Montreal, I witnessed my first aurora. Here’s what one websites said about auroras:
Far north in the night sky, a faint glow appears on the horizon. Green and red flames of light stretch across the sky. A glowing curtain of light forms, waving and swirling above you. As the lights fade away the dark night closes over you once again.
Apparently, I watched the curtain format aurora. It was just… spectacular. I’m glad I lost sleep over it because now that memory is so much more important than having gotten a couple more hours of sleep. The guy behind me was looking at the same thing, and being the only two insane people awake at the time were witnesses to a work of god. It came out of nowhere, and couldn’t have lasted any more than 5 minutes. But my god, was it beautiful.
I took off on the 29 Dec and after arriving at Frankfurt 11AM the next day, we took off to Paris at 11 PM that same night. We spent the 31st browsing through Paris, which was really overwhelming. It was an experience to remember. I’ve never celebrated the New Year’s like that before. We spent the New Year’s Eve and Day there, going to Notre Dame and places I don’t quite remember, because they all had such confusing names. But I got Paris down pretty good. The only two more places I’d like to go to in Paris now are Moulin Rouge and Palace of Versaille. I did get to go up the Eiffel Tower. We felt like saving money and proving something to ourselves, so we instead we took the stairs up as far as we could go (2nd level) which wasn’t as hard as we initially thought, and we walked back down. We stayed at the Hilton hotel there, but it sucked ass. Not only was it stinking expensive as hell, it was small. And not enough towels. Even the beds were small, twin size at best. But every hotel in Europe was like that. And I was not impressed that we had to pay to go piss at the Eiffel Tower. Talk about tourist attraction… We returned on the 2nd to Heidelberg where my brother lives and works, and went to the castle there. Later we took off east to a small town of Vilseck, but the hotels were closed for the holidays so we stayed in Konigstein I really loved both towns, but I loved Vilseck much better. It was a small, cozy little town you’d see in movies, and the train station was right there, a full 2 minute walking distance. And everything you needed was there in the town. I came across another town with a river running through it and some bridges made of wood. Must have been there for centuries. It was just astounding. Definitely some place I’d consider retiring in, except it’s cold as hell, and I can’t speak German, and everything is so freaken expensive. While he was in training I went to Prague in Czech Republic with his friend’s parents, which I was not very impressed with at all. Perhaps we went to all the wrong places, but we got lost so badly that we spent 11 hours on the road and 2 hours in the actual city. But I was impressed with the women there. I think women of Prague were just beautiful, really European. But the city itself was just flat out dirty, and the directions were horrible. And there weren’t much to see. It almost felt like I was in a huge factory house.
My brother and I later took off to Vienna during the weekend. I really loved this city. It was the best integration of centuries of culture I’ve ever seen in my life. There’s street cars, horse carriages, cars, people on bikes, in one avenue. And the architecture was just astounding. There was this guy that spoke perfect English and was speaking in different tongues to different customers at the restaurant. Apparently he’s been all over the world and decided to settle in Vienna. That’s gotta say something about the city. I really loved it.
But of course I was sick. So all that traveling didn’t help. I actually took an entire day off just to lay back, but I didn’t mind. I was just tired, sick, and all I wanted to do was read a good book or something, and just chill. It was great being on the highway, though, because most of the time there was no speed limit. But it was time to leave it all. I’m glad I didn’t spend too much time in Europe because after a while it all started to look the same to me. I went home on an ICE train, which, although slower than a speeding bullet, was still going at an impressive 200 kmph consistently. Since Frankfurt was far from Nurnberg (closest train to Konigstein), my bro dropped me off at 3AM. But on the way there, we got pulled over by some random cops because my brother couldn’t find the train station and he ran a red light searching for it. They pulled us over, and we were hoping they couldn’t speak english, but they must have spoken it better than us. They asked for the usual, id, registration… they look at my brother’s id and ask him, is this really you? he’s like yeah, it is, and the cops laugh at us and say, ‘haha, pictures from better times.’ And i couldn’t stop laughing my ass off. we must have looked so bad, though, it was late, 3 am, we just ran a red light, we’re some koreans with american passports and we look like nothing from our pictures. They were asking if my brother was drunk, and he was just honest and told them we were lost, I had a train to catch in 10 minutes and we were freaking out because I had no idea where it was. They asked us some questions, did some tests on my brother, and told us to follow them afterwards. They led us directly to the train station, which it turns out we were driving away from, and I got on the train just in time. So far, I’ve been pulled over 4 times, only once when I was driving, all 3 other times when my brother was driving, and nothing came out of it. I’m the luckiest bastard alive.
New Year’s Resolution.
My mom asked me over the phone when I was in Germany if I had a New Year’s Resolution. I told her I didn’t, but I asked if I should. She said I should try and smile more often. Maybe I’m just a really depressed guy ever since high school. I think I was just more sure about myself back then. Foolishly sure, but nevertheless sure.
My own personal new year’s resolution: To be Idealistically Realistic and Realistically Idealistic. I find that I am overly idealistic sometimes. I like to over glorify things. Or I’m too realistic. I’d say things can’t be done, when everyone else in the room knows it can be done. And sometimes my stubbornness gets the best of me. This is constant struggle for me. It was a struggle when I was in the Army and it’s still a struggle now.
To do: find the Cal windshield sticker for brother
Get more music and arrange them.
Clean my room
Sell things on ebay
Get my travel voucher straight
Fill out GI Bill
Do my taxes
Try to get my Language pay right again
Fill out the FAFSA and Cal Grant
Learn new songs on the guitar
THE TRUTH ABOUT MEN (from women’s perspective):
1. The nice men are UGLY.
2. The handsome men are NOT nice.
3. The handsome and nice men are GAY.
4. The handsome, nice and heterosexual men are MARRIED.
5. The men who are not so handsome, but are nice men, have NO money.
6. The men who are not so handsome, but are nice men with money, THINK we are only after their money.
7. The handsome men without money are AFTER our money.
8. The handsome men, who are not so nice and somewhat heterosexual, DON’T think we are beautiful enough.
9. The men who think we are beautiful, that are heterosexual, somewhat nice and have money are COWARDS.
10.The men who are somewhat handsome, somewhat nice and have some money and thank God are heterosexual, are shy and NEVER MAKE THE FIRST MOVE!!!!
11. The men who never make the first move, automatically LOSE interest in us when we take the initiative.