What Q-tips can't reach

Post-graduation troubles

2011-06-30T23:46:00.000-05:00

Man, it's been a while since I've blogged. I almost forgot where to click to start a new post.

This six-month stretch of 2011 was most likely my happiest six-month stretch of my entire life thus far. Quite the statement, but I can't think of any other time when I was this consistently content with my life.

And that's why college graduation was bittersweet. To have to leave on such a thrilling ending note left me all the more nostalgic: of the countless experiences that helped me grow, of the times when I was experiencing simple, free bliss with friends, and even of the genuine laughter from just a week prior.

But nevertheless, college is now officially a thing of the past. It's surreal to acknowledge that fact, even after a month and a half after the ceremony.

And now, as if flung into a cage of lions, I'm faced with something called real life.

It sucks.

Well, it hasn't been that long, so that's probably an overstatement. It is a bit frustrating, though, to keep receiving nothing but rejection emails from photographers. After all, the path to become a photographer isn't quite as cookie-cutter as the path to becoming a doctor or a lawyer. And it turns out that being a photographer is a lot more about business than the actual art of photography.

But maybe I'm just supposed to "snap out of it" and start looking at this more optimistically. I'm sure established photographers had to go through a similar, grueling process that I'm going through. You have to start somewhere right?

My main thing right now is to somehow be more type A with all this. I have the ambition, yet I lack the drive. What am I supposed to do? How can I break out of this mold? Do I need to experience an epiphany?

Yeah, it sucks.

Ringing in the new year

2010-12-31T22:30:00.002-06:00

This winter break, I've felt like I do every winter break: lazily relaxed. I've come to appreciate this feeling of inactivity though, because in breaks past, I've griped about simply bumming around at home while doing nothing of high value, only to end up back in school soon enough, wondering where my break went.

This break seems a bit different than any other ones in the past though, in one unexpected regard: more material goods. Our family never really celebrated Christmas -- we never had a Christmas tree; never had picturesque lighting; never sent out cards in mass. I also never really received any gifts. I would ask my parents for Christmas gifts when I was a pre-pubescent teenager, and then quickly learned that I'd never get gifts on the 25th of December of any year, so I just stopped asking altogether.

But this year, my parents were the ones who offered to buy me a new Macbook Pro. As a college student aspiring to be a photographer, how could I say no? Just for shits and giggles, I also asked for a new cell phone. Strangely enough, my parents agreed. I don't think I've ever had them agree so quickly about buying material goods -- they were just never really those kinds of parents.

Soon enough, I asked for new glasses, new shoes, and an external flash for my camera -- all of which came with swift acceptance (with the exception of the glasses, but that's a different story). While these goods have made into a happy boy now, I took a step back and realized something: When I look back to assess my happiness, it's not the material goods that made me happy in the long run, it's the memories -- having countless chances to chat with the one I miss most, having silly talks with my parents over my mom's appetizing meals, and my baby cousins who came over to our house to share Christmas with us.

With that, here are the best pictures from that Christmas afternoon (all edited with my brand new Lightroom program!):


Andrew, 3 years, eating noodles

Ryan, 8 months, get kissed by Dad

Andrew cleans off cake crumbs

Ryan

Curious Ryan

Happy New Year!

Laughter cures a lot of things

2010-11-11T01:40:00.006-06:00

What better time to blog about something completely random than now, at 1am, a hearty thirteen-and-a-half hours before my psychology exam which I will likely be screwed by?

Ah, but 'tis not completely random. During times prone to increased stress levels, it's important to try to maintain your sanity a bit. And in the short-term, is there anything better than finding ways to laugh? Thus, I present to you a short list of my favorite videos that cheer up my mind a bit.

1. Starting off with something a bit tame. This isn't a funny video in the conventional sense, but I have a soft spot for happy babies who enjoy life in the most innocent baby-like way possible. Skip to 0:56 for the highlight laugh. (Also recommended: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXXm696UbKY)

2. This is a very recent discovery thanks to some Facebook snooping. Lil Jon and Sesame Street? Never thought I'd see those two things put together in the same sentence.

3. Man, this girl pours out her heart into this public service announcement. Such a simple solution, yet apparently, not many people do it. WASH YO ASS!

4. I don't think I've ever enjoyed watching someone else play through a video game this much. Call me sadistic, but man -- the classic, cheerful Mario theme song paired with hundreds of deaths in a single level almost makes me want to apologize to the few dozen lanky DDR players I've snickered at. After this discovery, I've realized that those DDR players never deserved my laughter.

5. Louis C.K. has been my favorite comedian for perhaps a year. This isn't to say that I know very many comedians, but this guy practically is the textbook example of dry humor with great theatricality. He's gifted at self-deprecation, making fun of his daughters, and hating on everyone else in between -- a true equal-opportunity insulter.

6. OK, so this isn't actually a video, but it's just as good, if not better. Although I didn't write the site, it holds a special sentimental value for me because I saw something just like this when I went to China last summer. Of course, make sure you read the commentary: www.rahoi.com/2006/03/may-i-take-your-order

That's it for now, but I bet I'm forgetting a ton of stuff. Any suggestions are welcome.

Time to go to bed to rest up my brain so I can hopelessly get through that exam. Senioritis for the win~

Go for it

2010-10-30T18:29:00.000-05:00

My parents and I have to get on an airplane. The plane is located on a large, steep incline, where a giant plastic slide is lined up along the side of the plane. We have to take the slide down and stop at exactly where our seat is, and get in.

My dad disappears from the scene. My mom is hesitant to take the slide; she's scared. I reassure her that she'll be ok, as I confidently head towards the slide.

The slide is spaciously divided into two lanes; the right lane has bars to hold onto, and the left does not. I sit down on the left lane, and I take off even before I realize it. I speed past my mom, who's on the right side holding onto a bar. I speed up -- going faster and faster, gravity swinging me down like an anchor. I look beneath my feet, and spot the hard cement ground, and as I embrace for the landing...

...awake.

Ugh

2010-09-25T01:01:00.000-05:00

There are plenty of nights, like tonight, when I go to bed in a negative mood. Unlike most other nights, though, I can't place a finger on why I'm in such a bad mood.

Objectively speaking, I had a great day today, yet at the end, I have my palm shoved into my forehead and my fingers digging into my bangs, trying to decipher why I'm feeling the way I am. I get these mysterious feelings quite often, or at least more often than I wish I did.

To me, the worst part of it all is that I can never verbally explain what's dancing around in my head. I wouldn't mind opening my heart out to someone to build a more sincere relationship, but asking me what's wrong is futile, because I'd just reply with a "I don't know" -- not to appear purposefully inaccessible, but because I really don't know. I wish I did.

In the past, a friend has told me that I come off as cold. I remember I wasn't offended much, just taken aback. How cold am I that makes him want to say that? How many others see me that way?

So in this seemingly fruitless attempt, I'd like to apologize for those who were turned off by me because of the way I acted or what I said. I don't mean it a lot of the time. It's just because some of my brain cells are party poopers when they want to be (although, if you don't appreciate my dry humor... can't help you there).

This was such a worthless post. Well, I guess I feel slightly better.

A moment of bliss

2010-08-07T00:29:00.000-05:00

The theme of the week was "green" for the photographers showcase. I wanted to get away from the obvious -- meaning no plain nature shots.

It started as a mere idea, and ended up with the highest average score of the week.

The moment I found out I won, it felt like some surreal reality. Even after having looked at the other contestants' photos beforehand and realizing that mine had a good chance to win, I don't think I ever really processed that possibility, let alone even entertain the idea of it. Despite having to celebrate alone in my apartment, it was one of the best half-hour euphoria that I'd experienced in a while.

Yes, this is "just" a photo competition, and it was "just" the results for one week; not even for the whole competition. For me, though, moments like these are few and far between, so it's important for me to cherish them whenever I can.

Paying to sleep

2010-07-17T21:19:00.001-05:00

Recently, I've really developed my skill of sleeping during movies at night.

I occasionally fall asleep during movies, usually with slower-paced ones; perhaps during a Godfather here and a Gone with the Wind there. But for some reason, it's gotten a lot more frequent this summer than ever. In the past month or so, I've fallen prey to about five movies or so, including one of my personal favorites, Knocked Up. Yes, I somehow managed to even nod off during a hilarious comedy movie that I love. I had to stand up on my wooden chair that I was sitting on to stay awake.

I've fallen asleep a couple times before in theaters, but I have passable excuses for both. The first time, I dozed (quite a bit) during District 9, but it was the day after I had come back from Korea, so I was intensely jetlagged. The second time, I fell asleep on a Friday showing of Shutter Island after a long week of assignments and exams.

I really hit my pinnacle when I went to the theater yesterday to watch Inception. I doubted that I'd fall asleep during a film by my favorite director, but at the same time, went in fearing that I'd walk out feeling like I had wasted $7.

Alas, by the halfway mark, I started to intermittently nod off for about two minutes at a time until the end of the movie -- which was plenty to make me completely have no idea what I had just sat through. The worst part was that everyone in my proximity was lauding at how amazing the movie was. Meanwhile, I griped to myself for the next hour or two, feeling betrayed and cheated by my own fatigue. I wondered whether or not I should pay another $7 for the same movie to see what the hype is about, but with the risk that I might fall asleep again (I did end up going again, by the way).

Am I the only one who falls asleep during movies? How do I fix this?

Sleep is such a love-hate relationship.

Silvia and Seonha

2010-07-10T14:43:00.001-05:00

A victorious night

2010-06-15T02:09:00.001-05:00

The first game for South Korea in the World Cup 2010 was scheduled to start on Saturday, June 12, 8:30pm KST. I decided to go out and make it my final hurrah before I go back to the States.

I initially met up with five others for happy hour at 6pm at Coex InterContinental Hotel. At 23,000 won (a little under 19 USD), it was quite a deal: buffet-style setup for different hors d'oeuvre-type foods (although they did have dishes like chicken wings and potato wedges) and an open wine bar with three different red wines, two white, Sangria, champagne, soju, and Korean rice wine (makgulli). On top of all that, there was a pianist smoothly singing old Korean ballads. I truly felt like a classy Douchebag (yes, with a capital D).

Soon enough, after a couple drinking games (sipping wine as punishment), it was 8:30pm, and we rearranged our chairs to face the projector screen. People donning heavy red apparel had already been filing in and taking up seats, and in a breeze, the once quiet aura turned 180 as people chanted for the Korean team. After each of the two goals against a seemingly lifeless Greece team, the cheers inside the hotel as well as from the TV were so loud that they effectively cleared any annoying droning noises of the vuvuzelas.

With ten minutes left in regulation and South Korea up 2-0, the three of us who were still there wisely decided to clear out the premises for fear of huge crowds of delirious fans finding their way to their next destination (most likely bars). We were trying to find the closest subway station, but instead got caught up in the nearby hubbub. The game had apparently ended, as a minute-long fireworks show was put on display.

By the time the fireworks ended, we realized that we needed to actually go through the main crowd of thousands to reach any kind of means of public transportation, due to the reroutes of buses for the day (and just misunderstandings of where subway stations are). So fearless soldiers we were, and shoved our way through. What an insane view: faces painted in red, piles of trash being organized on the ground, crowds singing, and just swarms of red trying to get on buses or inside the subway station.

We somehow managed to fit ourselves on a bus (uncomfortably, without much breathing space). We got off after several stops and found our way to Rainbow, a hookah bar. The three of us shared a couple (apple and strawberry), and chilled while watching the Argentina-Nigeria game. Life was good.

And then we spent an hour at 2am trying to find a taxi driver who was willing enough to take two of us to near my apartment. Not one of the best endings, but it was a fun experience nevertheless.

Love is sometimes unexpected

2010-06-03T12:35:00.001-05:00

Seoul, Wednesday night.

I meet up with five people; three of them for the first time. We have chicken and beer for dinner. One plate fried, the other marinated, a 3000cc pitcher of beer, and a couple bottles of soju. Then we decide on a bar a couple blocks down. We get the apple soju, strawberry soju, yogurt soju, and pineapple soju. We take shots out of carved-out apples that they give to each of us and marvel when they bring out an actual pineapple. Entertaining, but unproductive. Everyone feels sober, so we decide to drink more. We buy six bottles of soju, a bottle of Korean raspberry wine, and a couple of liters of beer. We go to the riverside to join the other tens of groups drinking their nights away. A few of us makes a clear point to get drunk, and the rest follows suit. We kill half of our soju supply and the wine in what seemed like less than five minutes. We take a few breaks, but most of our night is dominated by alcohol. We decide to head home. We get into a taxi an I w u l a r m t. h e wa k , p r t . . .

I'm in my own bed. My mom, who's standing beside me, asks me if I need anything. My wheezes are louder than my "no." She embraces me tightly and tucks me in.

Pearl, Angela, Susan, and Ashley

2010-05-20T05:49:00.000-05:00

Ashley

2010-05-19T03:02:00.000-05:00

Lily

2010-05-18T23:21:00.000-05:00

A short and simple shoot:

Dan

2010-05-18T01:19:00.002-05:00

For these photos, I decided from the get-go to really get to know how to use Photoshop and make the images look as processed as I could make them. For my first go at using the program to the max, I'm satisfied with the results. Here are the bests (click to enlarge):

Joe & Christine

2010-05-17T00:31:00.000-05:00

During finals week, I offered free photoshoots in the art school lighting studio for anyone who was interested. I did four different photoshoots, and here's my first one of a couple (click to enlarge):

Wedding [Yu Duk Lee & Eun Kyoung Bae, 05.01.10]

2010-05-16T12:32:00.003-05:00

Shot at my first wedding as the second photographer about two weeks ago! Here are the bests (click to enlarge):

Mystery #5

2010-05-05T04:37:00.000-05:00

One of the biggest aspects of me that changed since birth: Now, I think not with my head, but with my heart. It's almost gotten to the point where translating my emotions into coherent words and sentences is nearly impossible.

Recently, I've spent a handful of hours thinking -- that is, feeling. Conversations help, but I don't even know if I can find the words for this.

Could this be why no one will ever fully understand me?

Will I even fully understand myself?

friday, april 11. [an image sequence]

2010-04-28T02:31:00.001-05:00

[click on any photo to enlarge]

RE: Anthro Department Photo Contest

2010-04-26T23:48:00.002-05:00

Dear Chang,

I'm pleased to announce that your photograph was awarded Third Prize by the Anthropology Department Annual Photo Contest Jury, consisting of Kirsten XXXX, Darla XXXX, and me. Congratulations! The jury agreed that this photograph is a very rich and subtle photograph that balances anthropological themes with the original and effective use of aesthetic elements.

As you know, the award carries with it a monetary prize of $50. Please contact Elaine XXXX, the Business Manager in the Anthropology Department, to make arrangements for the payment. You can contact her via email at xxxx@xxxx.edu or visit her office, xxxx.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best,

Pete

==== UPDATE [4.30.10, 5:59am] ====

Further proof: http://anthropology.artsci.wustl.edu/photo-album/Photo-Contest

Murder

2010-04-23T02:19:00.000-05:00

"So is she really dead?" I asked in a murmur.

"Yeah, I think so," he said, mirroring my hushed tone.

Without another moment passing, I briskly make my way out of the kitchen. With all my might, I punch through one of the glass panels of the door, and large chunks fall to the floor. Ignoring the ten pairs of eyes staring at me, I yell "FUCK" at the top of my lungs, as I stomp out into another room.

I slam the door behind me as loudly as I can, lock it, and sit down in front of the desk facing the glass wall. A few people walk by and peep through the wall, but to me, they don't even exist. I'm just trying to control my emotions and justify how a guy like him could kill a girl like her.

Photorgasm weekend

2010-04-19T01:29:00.001-05:00

2010 NBA Playoff predictions

2010-04-15T18:39:00.000-05:00

Eastern Conference

First Round
(1) Cleveland Cavaliers over (8) Chicago Bulls, 4-1
(5) Miami Heat over (4) Boston Celtics, 4-3
(2) Orlando Magic over (7) Charlotte Bobcats, 4-2
(3) Atlanta Hawks over (6) Milwaukee Bucks, 4-1

Conference Semifinals
(1) Cavs over (5) Heat, 4-1
(2) Magic over (3) Hawks, 4-2

Conference Finals
(1) Cavs over (2) Magic, 4-3

Western Conference

First Round
(1) Los Angeles Lakers over (8) Oklahoma City Thunder, 4-2
(5) Utah Jazz over (4) Denver Nuggets, 4-2
(2) Dallas Mavericks over (7) San Antonio Spurs, 4-3
(3) Phoenix Suns over (6) Portland Trailblazers, 4-1

Conference Semifinals
(1) Lakers over (5) Jazz, 4-3
(2) Mavs over (3) Suns, 4-3

Conference Finals
(1) Lakers over (2) Mavs, 4-3

NBA Finals

Cleveland Cavaliers over Los Angeles Lakers, 4-2

Blog post dump

2010-04-11T01:40:00.004-05:00

Entries for photo contest

Treading on Air

Suspense

Jazz at Holmes, feat. the Jason Swagler Group

The Upside of Learning

In Perspective

I submitted these five pictures to the WashU Focus photo contest for this round. To choose these finalists was considerably tougher than I had imagined.

Initially weeding out photos to get down to thirteen was hard enough, but having to pick the best five to accommodate for the rules of the contest was hell. I asked a number of people to help, having them tell me their favorites. This may have made this even more difficult, since I got votes for every photo from about twenty separate people. I (jokingly) equated the strenuous process to having to choose my favorites among my own children... although when I got down to six photos, it really did feel comparable (this is not to say that I have children).

Perhaps more importantly, I realized how much I've grown as a photographer since the last time I made submissions. Sure, I have better equipment now than I did then, but I now have a better understanding of what makes good photographs look good. Mainly, I've learned how to better incorporate emotion into my photos, something I've never thought about during my early, more ignorant days.

First photo gig
Speaking of development as a photographer, I got to test my shooting skills at a live event... all while getting paid! I was asked by a friend, who was one of the organizers for the event, so I immediately accepted, and saw this as a gold mine in not only improving my photography, but also learning about what it takes to become a professional.

Admittedly, running around from spot to spot inside the sizable lecture hall and switching between lenses was both physically and mentally draining, but after it was all over, I was immensely satisfied and felt that much wiser. As an added bonus, I got a few great shots (a couple of which I submitted to the photo contest; they're the last two photos above). I'd still say it's a bit premature to make any big decisions right now, but I do know that I'd really want to keep photography as more than just a hobby.

Summer plans

For the majority of the summer, I'll be staying in St. Louis to intern at the Crime Victim Advocacy Center (CVAC). Presumably, I'll be talking to victims of crime around the St. Louis area, as a means to try to console them. I'm reservedly excited about this -- when I visited the place for my interview, it seemed like a small place with not that much going on, but the psychology department's internship coordinator said he heard good things from past students about it, so I'm sure it'll help me grow.

I found out about CVAC by browsing through the psych department's internship listing, after realizing how immediately my post-graduation worries could turn into reality. I had been interested in pursuing counseling/clinical psychology as a career for a little while, but never really went out of my way to find any hands-on experiences I could engage in to even find out if this would be the right thing for me. I'm hoping this internship is a step in the right direction.

The internship will tentatively begin sometime mid-June and go on until the beginning of the fall semester. So when this semester ends, I plan to go back home to Virginia for several days, followed by three weeks or so in Korea (or whenever my internship starts).

While I'm in St. Louis, I'll most likely have tons of free time (I think the internship only takes up four hours per day?). So assuming that I'm not studying for the GRE (of which, by the way, I have no idea if I'll take it at all), I'll use the free time to do what I should be doing on a regular basis: work out and read. I'd also like to really take some time to explore St. Louis, something I've done a minimal amount of in my three years here.

On top of that, though, I'd like to make it a goal to really try to expand my boundaries as a photographer and shoot a few weddings. I don't nearly have enough camera equipment to be the lone photographer at an event that may only happen once for those two featured individuals, so I'm thinking of maybe joining another more skilled photographer, not to shoot for money, but just to gain experience. Just one problem with that: I have no idea where to even start. I don't know who I should contact to work with, or let alone even find weddings to shoot at...

Citygarden

After an amazing buffet dinner at Harrah's (all-you-can-eat crab legs for $25!), we hung out for a bit at the downtown sculpture park (of which I now know as Citygarden). The picture above is at the fountains with lights of changing colors.

Pause, play, rewind, record

2010-03-22T02:02:00.000-05:00

Owning a remote control to control my life was a fantasy I've had since as long as I can remember.

My remote control fantasy is different from the typical time traveling fantasy that every person has at some point in his or her life. With time traveling, you can virtually travel to any time you desire. I've wanted to travel across time as well, but I've let go of that wish after realizing how messy it could be. I'd constantly have to worry about things like the butterfly effect, coming face-to-face with my younger, ignorant self, and simply being stuck outside of the current era. And besides, I have little or no desire to travel to the future; life would be rendered completely meaningless for me. Curiosity killed the cat.

Instead, my personal remote control would only work within my life span. It would be very simple, complete with only four buttons: pause, play, rewind, and record. Everything I do with the remote control would affect me, and only me.

Pause. So many times I feel like I'm in a race against the clock, and as a result, stress builds up. I'm not particularly known to be very efficient with time, nor am I the best at managing internal struggles. Upon pressing this button, everything around me, including time, would stop -- except me. I could do anything I want during a pause, as long as it affects only me. One of the beauties of my fantasy: during a pause, I don't age physically; only mentally. I may become wiser but not weaker.

Play. When I'm done with whatever I'm working on or when I'm done taking a breather during my pause, I press play.

Rewind. We all make mistakes, including, but not limited to: slips of the tongue, misplaced objects, and awkward encounters. This button would help me to go back and erase such petty, unnecessary things that could've been.

Record. For the times I laugh until my stomach aches. For the times I eat a hearty meal with good friends and a good conversation. For the times I realize the beauty of my surroundings. For all of these times, I would press record so that I can go back and re-experience them during a pause.

Spring break in SoCal

2010-03-12T05:43:00.004-06:00

It's been a while since I've updated my blog, meaning the 52 photowalks resolution I made at the beginning of the year is now broken, but my weekend in LA may serve as redemption. Also, I'm getting better at using Photoshop, so my photos look better in general.

After I got in Saturday morning, my first venue was the public library in downtown LA. I don't think I've been in that kind of library before. Interesting sculptures, cool lighting fixtures, murals on the walls, mini art galleries, and attractive girls with their heads buried in their books. Unreal.

After touring the library, we walked a bit to the cathedral. I'm not religious by any means, but I had no idea these buildings could be so huge. Pretty surreal in a cool and quiet environment. This picture was taken in the mausoleum downstairs.

We then headed over to Shrine Auditorium for Kollaboration 10. It was my third straight time I've been to Kollaboration (Philly last year, and Atlanta in '08). I was expecting a lot since it was their tenth anniversary show in LA, but I thought it fell short. It was a solid show, but not as great as I thought it'd be, or even my favorite of the three. The best competitor didn't even win it (pictured below).

After Kollaboration, we met up with an old high school friend of mine and went bar hopping. The first bar we went to didn't have a legit sign out front and required a password to get in, but it was worth it. There was a live small-band performance soon after we got in, meaning I got an opportunity for quality photographs.

On Sunday, we headed to Huntington Beach. It was extremely windy, meaning huge waves, tangled hair... and birds that seemed like they were stuck in mid-air upon flight. I took advantage of this, and got some good pictures of the one in the pictures below. I think it knew I was taking pictures of it though; it shat on my jeans, which I later discovered.

On Monday, on our way over to Disneyland by bike, we stopped at a train tracks junction where there was tons of graffiti on the walls.

Disneyland was the bomb. We got in for free through old vouchers that had been saved, which made it all the better. It had been a while since I went to any kind of theme park; the last time I went, I was scared of the rides. Disneyland, by no means, has scary rides, but nevertheless, they were, simply put, fun as fuck.

Disneyland: The happiest place on Earth.

This is the roof of Space Mountain, home of the single best ride at Disneyland. If you go to Disneyland, do not leave without going on the Space Mountain ride (think tour inside a planetarium dome in an aggravated shopping cart).

On Tuesday, we touched base on a number of locations, the first being the Korean Friendship Bell. It was again a damn windy day, but the sky was gorgeous and clear as ever.

We then went to a lighthouse nearby. The pictures I got of the actual lighthouse wasn't anything special, but I did manage to snap a photo of a bird shitting.

Next up was Hollywood. In addition to the Walk of Fame, the inscriptions were interesting reads and it was fun to compare our hands and feet to those of the celebrities'.

Our next destination was the Old LA Zoo. The site had apparently been the house for animals way back when until they got relocated to the new zoo in the mid-1960s. Instead of entirely demolishing the land, they apparently kept everything the way it was left. I'm not sure if we saw all of it, but it was an interesting place to walk through.

And finally, the Raptors vs. the Lakers at the Staples Center. Tickets cost about $50, and if you had seen the game, it was definitely worth it.

Kobe hits the game winner. Again. Where amazing happens.

That was only 39 of (believe it or not) 1249 total pictures I took in California. If you'd like to see more, you can find them on my Facebook album.

Party

2010-02-20T17:27:00.000-06:00

I'm at a college-like party, with lots of alcohol and loud noise. I'm with my parents, my uncle, his wife, and their three kids (side note: in reality, they only have one child right now, and are expecting another in a few months). Just from the aura, it feels like there's a bunch of people at the party, but I can't estimate how many people there are. The place is anonymous. It feels small, but it seems like there's really no way to tell.

Throughout the night, neighbors complain about the noise level. More and more people come by and rap the windows, looking irked about our party, but no police come.

Sometime throughout the night, we relocate, but it's hard to tell where we went to. It feels like my uncle's place, but everyone seems just intoxicated enough to not care. The kids, who seem like they're between the ages of 2 and 5, seem the most intoxicated of everyone, probably due to their small bodies. My uncle and his wife tend to their children, and I look around the table that I'm sitting at and notice spilled cups of alcohol just lying there.

Photowalk #6: Jazz at Holmes

2010-02-08T02:17:00.000-06:00

(click to enlarge)

Last Thursday after the KSA GBM, a couple friends wanted to go to a jazz gig at Holmes Lounge. I've heard about the weekly jazz gigs there since freshman year, but I've never actually been. I didn't really have anything urgent to do (woo 13 credits!), I decided to go. It was a very cool and mellow environment, and the atmosphere reminded me of a small-town coffee shop (but in a huge space) with live music. Seizing the opportunity to snap some photos, I migrated numerous times, crouching in front of those at tables, careful not to obstruct their view, and kept shooting.

Photowalk #5: LNYF

2010-02-01T04:39:00.000-06:00

This past Saturday night was the second and final show of Lunar New Year Festival (LNYF). I've watched the show every year since I was a freshman, and for each show, I've snapped photos for at least half the time. In the past, shooting in settings like these -- fast movement in low lighting -- was one of my biggest Achilles' heel. This year though, with a better lens and more knowledge, my photos have gotten a lot better. There's still room for improvement, but I'm overall very happy with the way these turned out.

This year was also the year I took the most photos during the show -- 278, to be exact. It was pretty easy to narrow it down to the best 50, but it took forever to choose my absolute favorites. Here's the final 7 that I got down to (click to enlarge):

If one or more of the photos have you (or a friend) in them, let me know! I'll send you the originals, before they were shrunk :)

Photowalk #4: Cookies on a rainy day

2010-01-29T02:07:00.003-06:00

The first assignment for my photography class was to compose a digital diary of my day, taking a few photos per waking hour. As if it was by fate, I received by brand new Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens in the mail last Friday. With the new lens secured on my camera, I picked Saturday as my shooting day, and ended up with 112 pictures for the day, more than what was asked for. Unfortunately, I only liked 3 of them. I guess that's the price you pay with photography. Here's two that I'm planning to print for the project.

(click the image to enlarge)

It started pouring during dinner, so as we waited outside under the awning of the restaurant entrance, I snapped a few photos; this is one of them. I remember it was still considerably raining when I took this picture, so I'm confused as to why none of the rain showed up. Still, I love the mood of the picture.

(click image to enlarge)

When we got back to the dorms, we made about three batches of cookies for about... four people? Yeah, there were a lot left over. It was a bunch of fun, though; some inappropriate ones were made. This picture was shot when the cookies were still in the oven. Check out that depth of field. What a sick lens.

Gratitude

2010-01-24T21:46:00.001-06:00

Earlier today, I got rid of the final piece of KSA-related material that had remained in my possession since December 2008.

I was en route to a KSA executive board meeting that had started half an hour ago -- appropriately, it was the very first time I had been late more than ten minutes. Right as I exited the suite, I realized that I forgot to take with me the group banner that I had bought with my own money around this time last year. Quickly sprinting backwards, I caught the door just in the nick of time. A small part of me wanted it to close on me.

Even through all the trials and tribulations that I dealt with during my KSA presidency over the past year, I'll never fail to realize how much of an impact it had on me. I truly understood how differently people think and further discovered what my personal strengths and weaknesses are. I was given the opportunity to grow and discover, something that I had desperately needed.

It may seem like I'm exaggerating this. I know that this is one of those "you had to be there" things, but to me, I don't think I'm being grateful enough. I do know that it does deserve its own chapter in my life.

My words simply don't and won't suffice, so it'll be appropriate for me to stop here.

2010 NBA All-Star Game roster

2010-01-21T21:12:00.001-06:00

...in my perfect world.

EAST
G: Dwyane Wade
G: Rajon Rondo
F: LeBron James
F: Chris Bosh
C: Dwight Howard
Reserves: Joe Johnson, Andre Iguodala, Gerald Wallace, Antawn Jamison, David Lee, Josh Smith, Paul Pierce

WEST
G: Kobe Bryant
G: Steve Nash
F: Dirk Nowitzki
F: Carmelo Anthony
C: Tim Duncan
Reserves: Chris Paul, Brandon Roy, Kevin Durant, Zach Randolph, Chris Kaman, Deron Williams, Pau Gasol

Too bad there's no such thing as perfect.

Photowalk #3: Newseum

2010-01-14T23:18:00.000-06:00

For my last weekend at home before I have to go back to school, I wanted to go to a photo exhibit or gallery nearby as a part of my photowalk. I was browsing on the internet, and found that the Newseum (just what you might think -- a news museum) in downtown DC had its own Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery. I decided to make my weekend start early, and I went today.

This was shot in a connecting metro station on the way to the Newseum. The ceiling was so neat that I couldn't resist taking a picture. I originally shot it in color, but I decided that I liked the black and white version better while I was editing the photo.

At the Newseum, the Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery was the first thing I went to. As I had hoped, it didn't disappoint. As the name suggests, the gallery featured every photograph that had won the Pulitzer Prize. Just having the privilege to look at these photos in such a great exhibit for only $10 was an honor. The story that went with each photograph was just as compelling as the image itself. I didn't take any pictures in the exhibit, because I felt that no picture could do it justice; it was just a matter of being there. It felt weird to realize that what seemed like 20 minutes turned out to an hour there. If there hadn't been other exhibits in the museum, I probably would have just stayed there until closing time.

The other sections were worth it, as well. There was an exhibit devoted solely to 9/11, a balcony with a view of the Capitol, a gallery of Iooss's sports photographs, and more. This is a photograph of a piece of the Berlin Wall that was torn down. Newseum is the owner of the largest section of wall outside of Germany.

An excellent article

2010-01-13T15:47:00.002-06:00

...here.

Ted Olson has well articulated my exact thoughts on the issue of gay marriage. Because I've always felt so strongly about this issue, I've been wanting to write something like this, but I guess I don't need to anymore.

Just a couple of my own side notes:

"Science has taught us, even if history has not, that gays and lesbians do not choose to be homosexual any more than the rest of us choose to be heterosexual. To a very large extent, these characteristics are immutable, like being left-handed."

Not having grown up in Korea, I couldn't illustrate examples, but my mom had told me that Koreans believe left-handedness is an unfavorable trait -- they go so far as to say that left-handed children are not as intelligent as their right-handed counterparts. In efforts to free the country from such misfortunes, teachers and parents force left-handed children to write with their right hands, or punish them for disobeying. Social intangibles like these help me to realize that I prefer the States to my homeland of Korea.

Down in the comments section of the Olson's Newsweek article, the very first comment comes from someone Olson would classify as a conservative with "an almost knee-jerk hostility toward gay marriage":

"Homosexuality is a sexual dysfunction. I don't need a Koran or Bible or Torah to figure that out. I only need a high school Anatomy textbook. It occurs in 2 to 3% of the population, rates that are similar to Bipolar disorder or alcoholism or [schizophrenia] or a whole number of things. I understand it's not a choice for most people. But I've also seen how it can be brought on by molestation."

Comments like these annoy the crap out of me and are really what motivate me to feel so strongly about the issue. I would refute this person's claims, but I wouldn't be able to do it as eloquently as Olson has. I'll just give the commenter the benefit of the doubt (ha!) and tell myself that he hadn't read Olson's article comprehensively.

Photowalk #2: Piano concert

2010-01-11T00:47:00.000-06:00

My mom suggested going to a free piano concert that was being held earlier this afternoon at the local community center, so we headed over a couple hours after lunch. Featured was Christopher Schmitt, who is currently in his last year at Julliard. As he was playing those Chopin pieces today, he reaffirmed my respect towards great musicians.

Prior to the start of the concert, there was an announcement that flash photography was not permitted. I wasn't planning on using the flash anyway, but I thought it might be rude to keep snapping photos while he was playing (since my camera does make pretty loud mechanical sounds when the shutter closes). While waiting for his fortissimo phrases so I could take a quick shot, I kept on setting just the right focus point so I wouldn't have to take it more than once. And indeed, this is the only photograph I took of him while he was playing.

The original photo was way too bright and the reds of the curtain were blinding. So during the editing process, I lowered the saturation and brightness, and toyed around with a few more settings to give it somewhat of an elegant vibe to it.

Bang, bang

2010-01-08T03:04:00.003-06:00

Last night in the NBA world, the Washington Wizards got shot down by the Cleveland Cavaliers, 121-98. Pun intended.

The pun refers to the incident involving Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas bringing his personal firearms to the team locker room in Washington DC's Verizon Center. Just as quickly as the headline went national, Arenas got suspended from the league yesterday afternoon prior to the game with the Cavs.

Whether Gil honestly brought his guns from home to get them away from his young daughter, whether he and teammate Javaris Crittenton got into a dispute about gambling debts, whether he provoked Crittenton to a gun duel -- I can't say for sure, and no one seems to know for a fact yet. All we know is that there's one underlying truth: he had guns in his locker.

So Gilbert made a mistake. Everyone called him out for keeping guns where they shouldn't have been kept, but being the Arenas fan that I was, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He said he didn't know about the DC laws regarding guns in the workplace, and I believed him. Everyone makes mistakes.

What really flung me over to the other side were his words and actions about the entire situation: his nonchalant attitude about it, his senseless tweets on his Twitter page (none of which I got to read before his account was deactivated earlier today), and eventually, this:

Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE/Getty Images

Apparently, even while awaiting his possibly heavy sentence for DC and/or federal offense, he found hoisting finger guns and imaginatively shooting his teammates during their pre-game huddle funny.

I remember the exact moment when I changed from a casual to a hardcore Wizards fan: when Arenas hit the game-winning shot at the buzzer in Game 5 in the first round series against the Chicago Bulls in the 2005 NBA Playoffs. Ever since then, I've followed the Wizards religiously, and lived vicariously through Gil. I grew to love his lighthearted, fun personality. He always took matters in stride by finding ways to laugh -- something I've never really been able to do, and thus have admired Arenas.

This time was no exception. He laughed at the face of the gun situation -- his gun situation -- and showed the world his inability to act maturely in the most serious of circumstances.

Following the finger-gun shootout, NBA commissioner David Stern immediately suspended Arenas indefinitely from the league before any judge's ruling. Stern decided that Arenas's immaturity had no place in the NBA, and I can't disagree.

Meanwhile, as Arenas awaits his sentence, the Wizards currently seem to be considering voiding the remainder of his contract with the team, which amounts to about $100 million. Assuming that this is successful and the Wizards win the fight against the players union, Arenas could never wear a Wizards jersey again.

Now, as a bigger Wizards fan than an Arenas fan, I support the team letting him go. Ever since he signed that contract, he went down with injuries, and played only 15 games in the last two seasons. With less than half of this season's games down, he's out, leaving behind only 11 wins for the team. I would say voiding his contract is a bit harsh of a punishment for posing no immediate threat to anyone (since his guns were reportedly unloaded), but then again, he brought this on himself. Many were criticizing the Wizards for signing Arenas to such a large contract, and although there have been hopefuls, he's proven those critics right.

The season that started with high expectations for the Wizards is now just an unfortunate obstruction waiting to end. The Wizards are currently the gloomiest team in the league, with a dismal 11-22 record as further testimony. I didn't watch the Cleveland game last night, but I could tell that the Wizards were playing with a dark cloud looming over their heads when I realized by how much the Cavs, the Wizards' biggest rivals, won by. Arenas or no Arenas, in normal situations, the score wouldn't have been that spread apart. Even LeBron James stated that their rivalry is now "over and done with."

With all that said, I don't hate Arenas. He led all of us Wizards fans to believe that there really could be a bright light at the end of the tunnel for the franchise with such a dreadful history.

But I'll never forget that he ruined the prospect of what could have been.

Photowalk #1: Portrait at the mall

2010-01-02T23:37:00.004-06:00

After a lunch at the Original Pancake House (highly recommended!) with my parents, my uncle, his wife, and his nearly three-year-old son, my uncle's family and ours split ways. We headed towards the mall near our house to have some Starbucks coffee and to window-shop. And of course, I hadn't forgotten to bring my camera. My parents had been wanting me to take a photo of them since lunch, so most of the photos I got were of them. This one was taken in front of an Anthropologie store at the mall, before I noticed this great wall with an uneven wooden block pattern; a beautiful backdrop. My mom liked this photo so much that we ordered a couple prints from Snapfish!

Photowalk 1 of 52 = success :D

2010, breakout year for photography

2009-12-31T03:18:00.003-06:00

I'm declaring 2010 to be the year I take photography more seriously. This is just one of my goals for the new year (the others will be in a new post coming soon), but I'm writing a post for this one exclusively, not only because photography means so much to me, but also because I have specific sub-goals. Without further ado:

1. Shoot in RAW (for a majority of the time). Shooting in RAW (instead of JPEG) allows for much greater leeway in terms of editing the photos. The one drawback is that RAW files are about 10x the size of JPEGs. My dad said he'd get me a new external hard drive, and I'm planning to ask my parents for a couple larger memory cards (they're less than $20 a piece), so it should work out.

2. 365 self-portraits. I'm guilty for being inspired by this. I've watched the video for the first time a while ago; it's wowed me then, and still wows me now. I'm not going to walk across China, but I do want to take a picture of myself everyday. I'm mostly interested in how I change throughout the year, but I'm hoping this will help me grow as a photographer, as well.

3. 52 photowalks. I wanna make a promise to myself that I'm gonna try to go out at least once every weekend with my camera. That's it. It'll be more difficult than daily self-portraits, but I'm certain that it'll help me grow as a person just as much a photographer.

4. Submit entries for WashU Focus photo contest. In an old post, I told myself I'd do this, but I've gotten lazy this past semester. Now that I'm no longer KSA president, I have more time and less excuses.

With that, here's one of my best photos of 2009, and a vow to do better in '10!

Christmas Blues

2009-12-25T21:44:00.002-06:00

Bleh.

Another Christmas, another sub-par day. Why is it that, year-in and year-out, I always feel like this during the holiday season?

Maybe it's because our family never really celebrated Christmas. We've never set up a tree in the house, and the Santa superstition was ruined at an early age when I caught my dad tiptoeing into my room a little past midnight to put some short-lasting gift on my desk. Soon after that discovery, my parents stopped giving me presents on Christmas as well, which I had quickly grown accustomed to.

Or maybe it's the overwhelming solitude and lethargy that I feel every year. No restaurants open on Christmas, so we don't have a choice but to stay in and eat homemade Korean food. I'm not complaining about the food, but having nothing to do all day but eat, watch TV, surf the internet, and sleep, makes me think about the past, present, and future -- more than usual.

Or maybe it's the uncomfortable talk that I had with my parents today. Worried about my future, I had asked my parents a couple days ago about the matter, to see if they had any inputs. I have no idea what I want to do after I graduate, I told them; I might have some general ideas, but don't have a clue how I might delve further. During lunch today, my parents let me know what they had been thinking of regarding the matter. Not only did it not help much, but it made me even more anxious about my future than it already had.

Or maybe it's the shitload of more reasons that float in my mind, none of which merits space here.

This may sound ludicrous to me later, but I want to go back to school. I think I prefer being busy to having too much time to dwell on my worries.

Buried under a couple feet of snow

2009-12-19T23:10:00.001-06:00

At last, my semester finished on Wednesday after my (fairly straightforward) Statistics exam. I flew home on Thursday afternoon -- perhaps just in time. Sometime mid-afternoon yesterday, it started to snow like some supernatural being from above was holding it in for a while (*ahem).

While this usually wouldn't cause much agony in our family, it so just happened that my dad was flying in from Korea this morning. Just as the weather forecasters promised, when we woke up, every square inch of the ground outside was enveloped with a bit over ten inches of pure white snow. And guess what? It was still supposed to snow 5-10 inches more.

The plane was scheduled to arrive around 10am. We left the house around 9:15. Normally, on snowless days with normal traffic, it would take about half an hour to get to the airport. This morning (with the help of a dog-walker who took pity on us), we successfully got out of our parking spot at about 10am.

Perhaps because it was still snowing, none of the roads were cleared off; not even the highway. We sped down the high roads at a measly 30mph, and ended up at the airport at around 10:45. A bit surprisingly, my dad was already standing outside waiting for us.

We decided to head over to a family favorite Vietnamese restaurant to have a hearty bowl of pho on this bitingly cold winter day -- idiotically not thinking of how high the chances of the place being open would be. It was about another 45-minute road trip, an "aw, fuck" realization upon arrival, and another 45 minutes back home.

Starting time: 9:15am
+ 45 min to get the car out of the lot
+ 45 min to get to the airport
+ 45 min to fuck ourselves over
+ 45 min to get back home
=============================
End time: 12:15pm
Grand total = 3 hours

Snowless round-trip (home to airport and back) = ~1 hour
Snowless trip from home to airport to pho to home = ~2 hours

Snow sucks.

It only stopped snowing a few hours ago, and there are plenty of scrolling announcements on every channel saying that life is canceled here in the metropolitan D.C. area. Balls.

Well, at least it looks kinda pretty.

Mystery #4

2009-12-09T21:09:00.001-06:00

When will I have my epiphany about academics? Will I ever? Do I just always do things I regret because I subconsciously realize that this isn't all that important at the end of the day?

Mystery #3

2009-12-08T01:03:00.001-06:00

How exactly do I simply "forgive and forget" someone like that?

Thanksgiving break

2009-11-28T18:50:00.003-06:00

After going to the downtown sculpture park on Tuesday without a damn camera, I vowed to swear by my camera for the next three days and constantly snap shots -- and snap I did. I took a total of 386 photos from Wednesday to yesterday. Here are my favorite 25:

On Wednesday, we headed to the Arch downtown. This is the view from the top, with the sunset peaking out of the horizon. The center-mid of the photo is the Cardinals baseball stadium.

Just some structure supporting a railing in the Arch. I'm a sucker for interesting shadows.

Through taking a bunch of night shots over break without a tripod, I got a lot of practice holding the camera steady.

I love this shot -- so many depths and lines.

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. This was my first time eating a full Thanksgiving meal at someone's house. We cooked it all ourselves, and it was good.

Thanksgiving orgasm

After everyone went their respective ways, I stayed outside for about thirty more minutes, and just shot photos of whatever I could.

A light at one of the entrance of Graham Chapel. For some reason, I really like this picture.

Looks like I shook the camera more than I thought I did...

On Friday, we headed to the Science Center. Here's the original Kodak Brownie camera back in the day. How cute.

After an amazing Indian lunch buffet, we made our way to City Museum, and bought the roof pass for an extra $5. That was probably one of the worthiest, inedible $5 purchases I've made. It was a photo paradise -- we were in time to catch the sunset, and there was so much cool stuff there that I didn't know what to shoot.

Tell me that doesn't look inspiring.

I think this is my favorite picture that I took during the break. The colors look so unbelievably rich.

A performance at City Museum. Yes, that's a tennis racket stuck on his ass. FYI, he got his entire body through that racket.

5:22 AM

2009-11-15T05:22:00.005-06:00

My day started off on a bad foot and stepped in shit along the way, but overall, I stayed on course and on the right road. The day ended on cloud nine.

At least from a third-person point-of-view.

From my view, the main course consisted of stepping on shit with a few seconds of deviations to the right path.

Why I never seem to change the way I think, I can't really say either.

Café Happy Together flier photoshoot

2009-10-26T01:26:00.002-05:00

With Café Happy Together coming up soon, we decided to take last year's approach for flier designs again with photographs. This past Friday, we did a photo shoot, and I got some pretty good pictures out of it. Below are my favorites of the bunch:

I borrowed a 100/2.8 lens for this, mostly to see what kinds of different results I could get out with a whole new lens. As you can tell from this picture, the lens produces beautiful bokehs. The one downside was that the focal length was too great for my purposes. I had to back up from the frame more than I wanted; it worked out, but the 50/1.4 that I've got my eyes set on is probably more suited for a project like this one.

I love this picture. "GQ that shit." hahahaha

Can't get any more generic, huh? :P

One of those "it looked a lot better on the small screen" instances. I thought I shot a masterpiece, but after I transferred it over to my computer, it wasn't so grand -- mainly because the subjects aren't as in focus as I thought they were. Still, considering the autofocus on the lens was going bipolar on me (because trying to focus on a black foreground against a dark background confuses it), I'm still satisfied with this image.

Socialism?

2009-10-22T01:31:00.002-05:00

I'm standing in a line to get food. The place reminds me of the old Bear's Den, but the place is a lot bigger. There are initially about ten people in front of me.

All of a sudden, when I'm about halfway closer to ordering my food, I overhear the cooks saying that they ran out of food. I mouth a silent "what the fuck" as I stand there without a clue as to what's going on.

Someone apparently comes back from a trip to Schnucks to buy food, but only buys so much, as he indicates that that's all the food they had left. Nevertheless, the cooks start to make food as usual. Conveniently, the food runs out as soon as I'm next in line.

What seems like a few minutes pass by, and I find myself listening to one of the workers at the cafeteria that all of the food has been depleted. "Should I tell them?" I ask, as I point to a horde of people in the back, appearing to be confused out of their minds. Over their incessant chatter amongst themselves, I break out my domineering voice and shout, "HEY GUYS, THEY RAN OUT OF FOOD!" The whole place deadens to a silence.

The next thing I know, I'm in the backseat of a moving car, as I think how things have turned socialist.

========

I had this dream two nights ago, but interestingly enough, I don't remember this one as clearly as I do my previous one (about the arranged marriage).

Arranged marriage

2009-10-22T01:02:00.001-05:00

A couple of family members and I stand in front of her house that seems to be situated in a quiet suburban town. I stand behind both of them, having a strong desire of not wanting to be there. One of my family members knocks on the door. Someone answers the door; it's not her. But I see her -- the girl* that my grandparents arranged for me to marry -- clearly in the distance, about six feet away from the door.

Suddenly, I'm in one of the rooms of the house, seemingly changing clothes. But for what? I feel like I should be changing into a suit for the wedding, but I end up wearing street clothes. One of my family members comes into the room, and we argue. I don't want to be there, I don't want to marry her; why am I there?

Time flashes forward again. This time, I'm standing outside, and looking into what looks like the wedding itself. The house is still behind me, so the wedding must be in the backyard or lawn of the house. I casually walk over to where people are sitting. There aren't very many people there (yet?), and I don't even see her there. All of a sudden, I inexplicably walk away in a rage, and I quickly pick up my pace as I get into a nearly sprinting speed. I run away from the wedding, away from the house, away from it all... Suddenly, it seems as though the setting is urban, and I'm running through a back alley between tall buildings.

========

I had this dream a week ago, but am writing about it now, after what has been a busy week. What surprises me is that I can actually retain this much after so much time has passed. Essentially, I only wrote down the title of this post as soon as I woke up, telling myself that I would write the synopsis of dream later. I'm sure that I could have included more details had I written up on it right after I had waken up, but even the fact that I remember all this is mind-blowing. Hopefully writing about all these dreams gives me some benefit in the future!

*Footnote: The girl I mention in this story is actually someone I know of in real life; someone I've seen several times, but have never talked to. Upon immediately waking up, I was struggling to think of what her name was, but failed and eventually looked it up on Facebook.

Perfection is only a hearty breakfast away

2009-10-05T23:47:00.004-05:00

The absolute best part about biking to the gym at 7 in the morning is the marriage between all of the things that bring my mind at ease: the morning dew that I can taste at the tip of my tongue, the wind that breezes through my hair, the early bird creatures that chirp and crawl up the trees, the face of the young sun that peeks out from the horizon and casts a rich orange glow on the ground, the peaceful sounds of nature, the absence of the bustling crowds of people walking around with too clear of purposes...

My emotions urge me to go on forever, but language is only so much.

At times like now, I wish time stopped at 7am, so I could bike without knowing I had to stop.

The Survival Lottery

2009-09-21T14:31:00.002-05:00

In my Present Moral Problems philosophy class, we were assigned a paper to write. The main topic of the paper revolves around philosopher John Harris's thought experiment called "The Survival Lottery." I found this rather fascinating, so I decided to post it here:

Imagine a world in which organ transplants have been perfected. Recipients of donated organs generally live long and healthy lives. In such a world, if two dying patients could be saved by organ transplants, then if surgeons had the requisite organs in stock, and no other needy patients, but allowed their patients to die for lack of organs, surely we would be justified in saying that the patients died because their doctors refused to save them. But if there are no spare organs in stock, and none otherwise available, the doctors have no choice; they cannot save their patients and so must let them die.

Let's suppose that there are no organs in stock. Patients Y and Z, however, need organs; Y needs a new heart and Z needs new lungs. As things are, they will die. But Y and Z are unhappy about this. They argue that it is not strictly true that there are no organs that could be used to save them. They maintain that if just one healthy person -- call this person A -- were to be killed, and his organs used, both of them could be saved.

The argument Y and Z develop runs as follows. Here are three innocent people: Y, Z, and A. None of them has done anything to deserve death. For sure, Y and Z have diseased organs, but this is not their fault (the disease is not the result of smoking, drinking, etc.); they are just unlucky. To say that it is Y and Z who should die, and not A, is to prefer the life of the fortunate well person to the lives of two unfortunate sick people. More innocent people will die if A's organs are not harvested than if Y and Z are not treated. Indeed, Y and Z suggest, not treating them with A's organs is to kill them as sure as shooting.

Y and Z recognize that there might be difficulties if organs were procured from random killings or from seizing healthy hospital visitors. So, they propose a national lottery system for the selection of 'A's of this kind. They propose that everyone in society above a certain age be given a lottery number. Whenever doctors have two or more dying patients who could be saved by transplants from one donor, and no suitable organs have come to hand through 'natural' deaths, the doctors can ask a central computer to supply a suitable donor match at random. Various safeguards could be built in (so that, for instance, those who received organs must not have caused their own disease, etc.). After all, Y and Z argue, the existence of such a lottery is best for society, since overall more lives are saved, and each individual should be less anxious, since every individual has a better chance of a long life than they would without the lottery system.

If you had the power to make the final call, would you accept the survival lottery to be enforced?

Mystery #2

2009-09-20T13:56:00.001-05:00

Would it be considered a sign of maturity if someone, who otherwise had valued a steady and stable lifestyle in the past, started to grow more and more restless of it?

Balloon Glow

2009-09-20T00:29:00.002-05:00

Last night, I went to the Balloon Glow at Forest Park, a 37-year-old St. Louis tradition. This was my first time going to this annual occurrance, and it was truly interesting. I don't think I've seen that many hot air balloons lined up in a park.

Since we arrived relatively late, they were already starting to take down the balloons within several minutes of when we got there, but these were a couple of the more interesting ones. Those are people at the bottom of the photo, so you can get a sense of how big those things were.

They be usin' fire to blow up the balloons

To me, the fireworks was more worth it than the hot air balloons. I think this may my first time I've been to a live fireworks show, let alone even photographing fireworks. Considering I've never shot a fireworks show before, I'm satisfied with the pictures I snapped, but I'm gonna need to read up on the correct technique to shooting fireworks, so the pictures look better next time. Apparently shooting fireworks is one of the more trickier things to shoot?

There was a whole row of food booths that snaked down a length of a football field. Sometime during my photo shoot of the fireworks, I had maxed my ISO to 1600, but forgot to switch it back. Fortunately, the images don't look too grainy after I downsized them for the blog.

Mystery #1

2009-09-20T00:12:00.001-05:00

Why is it that when you hang out with someone with a personality that's very similar to yours for an extended period of time, you see the biggest weaknesses in yourself? And why is it that this person becomes one of the biggest influences in your life, regardless of how similar he/she is to you?

Blinding

2009-09-14T13:45:00.002-05:00

It's a room of an anonymous high-rise hotel. One of the corners of the room is rounded out, and is covered by a window that spans the entire wall. The immediate view outside the window is another high-rise building, suggesting that the hotel is located within the heart of a city. Inside the room are two beds, both covered with white sheets and blankets.

My dad's sitting on the bed closer to the window. I'm sitting on the corner of the other bed, next to my mom. I'm trying to persuade her to buy me an iPod Touch, outlining in what ways it's superior than past generation iPods. I'm speaking in a bit of an annoying, drawn-out voice; it's as if I'm five or six years younger, when my mental maturation process still hadn't initiated, and I was a bit too materialistic for my present liking.

Suddenly, in the middle of my energetic spiel, a few flashes of white light from outside flood every square inch of the room. It seems like the sun's light rays are getting way too close for comfort (without any rise in heat). The amount of time each flash takes to reach full whiteness is gradual, yet quick (within a couple seconds). Each time the flashes occur, I dive into my mom's arms and embrace her. I keep my eyes open during the flashes, but all I see is pure whiteness, and nothing else.

A spark from the writer side of me

2009-09-03T07:53:00.001-05:00

I should be catching up with some reading right now (yes, it's only the second week of school, and I'm already behind in reading), but sometimes, my motivation sinks so low that I'm pretty sure I'd be doing myself a disfavor if I even attempted to study.

On one single night this past summer (oh, how I miss thee), I walked along the shore of Haeundae Beach. As I was strolling along, my mind started flooding with such vivid thoughts I've never really had before -- fireworks of inspiration, fit perfectly for a story. So I started writing.

I informed a few of you about this, and even told you to be patient until I finished my prose. Well... I don't know what to tell you, but it's unfinished. Yet, I've still decided to post what I wrote on here. Why? Let's just say that not all fires can be lit forever. Oh, and I seemed to have misplaced my lighters and matches somewhere. At least for the time being.

Anyway, below is all of what I wrote before the fire dissipated. Just a few side notes:
1. The events in the story is almost entirely true, and I'm the narrator.
2. I wrote the majority of the story in less than a couple hours that night when I went back to the hotel room, with the exception of the last two paragraphs, which took me about two weeks to squeeze out of my head.
3. The photograph I included in the post is the same one that I talk about in the story.
4. I've made a rough outline of the basic plot for the rest of the story, but I remain to keep it only visible to my own eyes until the inspiration (hopefully) comes to me again.

Enjoy!

========

With my trusty camera clutched firmly in my hands, I stood atop the bottom railing of the balcony and leaned my face into the melody of the shore. My ears immediately zeroed in on the waves: a sound so wise and serene, yet unquestionably the most supreme of the night. The scene reminded me of the many inspiring photographs that I had seen: each one precisely capturing just the right emotions, ones that even a thousand words wouldn't suffice. I was destined to emulate them. I peeled off the lens cap and zoomed in on the shoreline. I held a wink and stared through the viewfinder as I waited for the picturesque wave to splash.

Click. I held my finger down on the shutter button, afraid that even the slightest heartbeat would render the image blurry. After a full four seconds, the shutter finally shut as the screen displayed my work.

Mediocre. It was hopeless without a tripod.

"Dad and I are gonna walk along the beach for a bit, wanna come?" My mom called out from inside as she was tying her running shoes.

I looked back down over the railing. From the tenth floor, I could only see what seemed like thousands upon thousands of tiny figures along the shore. After what had been a tiring summer, I came here expecting to relax; surely, my definition of 'relax' never included throngs of people. Hesitantly, I glanced back down at my camera. On the LCD screen was still the same mediocre image that I had snapped a moment ago. I took one final fleeting look down at the armies down by the beach.

"Sure, I'll come."

My feet seemed to scream reluctance, but I ignored them and walked inside, closing the glass balcony door behind me. I set down my camera on the coffee table, regretting not bringing my rickety tripod from home.

I decided to remain optimistic and convinced myself that the horde of summer tourists I saw from our room was simply a fabrication of my tired mind. Unfortunately, my eyes are usually deadly honest. As soon as grains of sand started creeping into my sandals, I realized that this time was no exception.

Goals for the upcoming semester

2009-08-23T09:23:00.000-05:00

With a new semester looming, I thought I'd put together a list of goals to stick to. None of these goals may last more than a week, but it doesn't hurt to keep a list for a record anyway, right?

1. Exercise. Ah, the single most common New Year's resolution, every year. I've had my own share of putting "exercise" on my lists in the past, and I can't say that I've ever kept it up for more than a month at any given time. This time, though, I actually have something more detailed than merely "exercise." I'm gonna try to go through with a HIIT program; I hear it does wonders for keeping you fit. I'm not sure about the specifics of how I'll go through with it yet (how many minutes, what speed, etc.), but I'm hoping it'll be a learning process. I'll aim towards exercising at least 5 days in a week, and on the off-days when I'm not doing HIIT, I'll lift. Exercise will help me maintain low stress levels, and will help with my memory (haha, I remembered, John).

2. Wake up early. Classes in China always started at 8am, a time I wouldn't even set to wake up in the morning. But I (eventually) got used to it, and I'd like to try to carry that habit over to WashU. Since my earliest class is at 10am everyday and the gym opens at 6:45am, my goal will be to wake up at 6:30am on weekdays, exercise for an hour or so, shower, and study until class. I'll give myself a bit more leeway on weekends, though (10am?).

3. Go to bed when I'm sleepy. Sleep deprivation has always been haunting me ever since high school, and it's taken tolls on my grades, health, and overall happiness. Through the years, I've gradually discovered that I'm happier when I sleep adequately the previous night. The tough part to this: I propose to keep my goal even when I have studying left to do. I've gotta learn that in the end, it won't matter too much if I tiredly study an hour more, when I could've been sleeping instead.

4. Drink three liters of water per day. Water is essential to our bodies, and not drinking enough will only cause more harm than not. I hear drinking enough water everyday has a ton of benefits, including keeping you energized throughout the day -- something I'll definitely need.

5. Don't procrastinate. Do the readings when they're assigned, plan for assignments, and start studying for tests at least three days in advance. A simple concept, but incredibly hard. Maybe if I get a head start during the first week, this won't be so much of a problem.

6. Take photographs whenever possible. Doing the one thing I love shouldn't always be put off by assignments and tests. Whenever I have free time, I'll try to carry around my camera with me and snap shots.

7. Stay optimistic at all times. Saving the most difficult for last. For those who know me well, you know that optimism isn't usually in my own dictionary. Somehow, I tend to provide positive words for others when things aren't going their way, but I can't seem to do it for myself. Last semester, having virtually no optimism took a toll on my stress levels -- hopefully something I don't wanna have to go through with, ever again. I plan to look at things with a broader view, and the idea that good things are bound to happen.

That's my list for now; if I think of more stuff along the way, I'll add it here. Hopefully, I won't have to write a post about how I failed to keep any of these goals for more than a week.

中国!

2009-08-06T15:03:00.003-05:00

Ever since I've been officially released from imprisonment of the Great Firewall, a photo update was bound to happen. Here goes:

The ceiling of one of the big house things in that one famous landmark in Beijing. That was probably the one of the most vague statements I've ever typed, but I never really paid attention to the tour guides, anyway. Aside from the significance of the actual ceiling, I think this is one of the best photos that I snapped in China; also, I used Ari's telephoto zoom lens for this. From that point on, I decided that I need to get me one of those.

A shot inside a random club that we found along a petty alley. I'm not really sure why I had my camera at the time, but I guess it turned out to be of good use.

Again, I forget exactly where this is, but I like the way it turned out. Maybe I should pay more attention next time around so that I have something to write about my photos.

Of course, my photo exhibition wouldn't be complete without a panning photo. By the way, this would be a fairly common sight in China. Oh hey, now that I think about it, my bike looked a lot like his, even with the dinky little basket at the front. Except both of his brakes seem to be functioning.

Didn't take very many pictures up on the Great Wall (I guess I was tired from walking uphill for what literally seemed like hours), but this is the best one I got. However, my camera apparently got too shocked at the unusual beautiful blue and cloudy sky, and overexposed that portion. It was nothing a little Photoshop could fix, so I just cropped out most of the sky. Still looks decent, methinks.

Wang 老师, taken with that telephoto lens. One of the best portraits I've ever taken. This lens is crazy. I need to buy this.

A random street view somewhere in Beijing. Good photo, considering this was shot out of a bus window. This picture kinda reminds me of the famous Beatles cover art.

Nie 老师, shot again with the telephoto. Did I mention that I wanted one?

We went to the zoo. The bear looked at me. The end.

If you were part of the program or you know Mu 老师 from WashU, you know a smile on her face is rare. And to think that I got this photo just in time. Man, I feel superior.

Ridin' the tandem on some random wall. Belinda forced me to take the bitch seat, while she sat on the back, taking pictures on cruise control. Don't ask why the pictures turned out so badly. :P

Terracotta soldiers. More importantly, shot with the telephoto.

If you read my other post about China: this is the girl in the train bound to Shanghai who touched my left leg. This photo serves as concrete evidence. See her hand there? Also, I said she was cute. Apparently, she's not all that photogenic. I swear, she looked much cuter in real life.

Uh, somewhere. Cool photo though.

In one of those purple-hoodied bicycle cabs. Someone please let me know if there's actually a technical term for this.

What can I say, I have bad memory. :X

Turtles are my favorite animals. Seeing them being sold by some random guy in an alley brought a tear in my eye.

I'M ON A BOAT.

As you can see, my desk collapsed. Here's what happened: I spotted a mosquito on the surface of inside of the left desk flap (the one that's retarded in the picture), so instinctively, I tried to kill it. Apparently, I smacked too hard. The flap slowly creeped outward, a centimeter per second, before the angle was too great and it just slid to the wall. Oh, China. (Oh, this is my room, by the way.)

These pictures all looked so nice that I couldn't pick out one from the four. I thought I remembered where I took it, but seems like my memory isn't on my side at the moment (in my defense, it's currently 4:30am).

This photo looked so much better immediately after climbing those huge mountains of stairs.

People gathering on ground level to watch the solar eclipse. Except there was none to be seen in Shanghai. Thanks to the shitty weather, the sky was completely gray and covered out everything between the Earth and space. What a depressing sight.

I KNOW WHERE THIS IS. This is at Hangzhou, and we were on a boat. There's nothing really special about this photo, except that it serves as the perfect representation of China.

The second tallest skyscraper in the world. Unfortunately, it rained all morning that day, so there was a nice smog down below our view from the 100th floor, where we paid 150 rmb to get to.

Last night spent in China is best spent at KTV (that is, if you want a sober night)! Invited all of the 二年级老师们 to come :D

大课老师们: Wang 老师 and Liu 老师.

小课老师们 [starting from the top right, going clockwise]: Xu 老师, Song 老师, Zhai 老师, and Luo 老师. They're all grad students at Fudan. Currently, I have two of their email addresses, HEHE. We'll see if I have the guts to do anything with them.

So that was 30 of about 800 pictures I took in China. If you haven't looked yet, here are some more photos that I uploaded on Facebook.

And I think it's about time I retired for now. I'm supposed to wake up at 6am to be in time for the train bound to Daegu, so that gives me an hour of sleep. SLEEP IS FOR THE WEEK

Holy shit.

2009-08-02T09:57:00.006-05:00

Illustration: Rachel Cunningham

I had a dream...

2009-07-18T08:24:00.004-05:00

A lucid one.

Just like pretty much every Friday that I've spent here in Shanghai, I was deadly tired during and after taking my weekly test. As usual, I took a two-hour nap right after lunch, followed by a two-hour basketball workout. A bit unusually, though, my energy level wasn't as up to par as it typically is after a long nap. Even while playing basketball, I called it quits early on when I started feeling faint. Throughout the rest of the night, I had one of those inexplicably mellow feelings -- like I wouldn't get one bit bored if I spend the whole day lying down on the beach without doing anything else -- that would only intensify with each passing minute. After calmly spending a few hours playing Mahjong and cards, I remember going to bed a little past 3:05 am.

So I have no idea at all about anything in my dream that preceded my realization that I was dreaming, but oh, was it good.

I'm in an anonymous building of some kind, of average condition. Other than that, I can't remember the details of location exactly. All of a sudden, I realize that I'm in my own dreamland. I have no idea how I became aware; it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, like "WAIT. WHOA. I'M DREAMING." Then, almost instinctively, I try to fly, and to my surprise, I can. I float to the ceiling, and carelessly pass through it, without an ounce of any worry or fear about bumping my head. I see the insides of the space between the ceiling and the floor above, and marvel at what's going on.

And I wake up. I snap my eyes open, without causing any stir, as I make out the shapes of my ceiling in the dark.

That was perhaps one of the most frustrating wake-up moments I've had. I was on a quest to do so much in my dream, but alas, it ended before I could fully understand the extent of dreaming.

Here's the ultimate kicker to all this: I could've sworn that I'd been sleeping for at least a couple hours. Fully expecting that it was around 5:30 or so, I look at the time on my cell phone, and notice that it's 3:28 am. That's just about twenty minutes of sleep. I remember it down to the minute because it was so shocking to me.

I think this was the first lucid dream I've ever had, but hopefully not my last. Ever since my late years of high school, I've had a growing desire to learn how to lucid dream, and now this desire is as strong as ever.

暑假在中国

2009-06-22T08:03:00.006-05:00

So it's been a bit over two weeks since I came to China. Indeed, Blogger is blocked here (along with other blogging sites, YouTube, and most tragically, porn). Fortunately for all of my readers, I've set up Mail2Blogger before I came to China (which enables me to automatically post new updates by sending emails to a special email address); plus, I've enabled Blogger to email me all of the comments that I get on the site. The con to this is that I can't post pictures. I'm almost certain I can proxy my way through China's firewall, but I've been too busy and unwilling to find out how. Don't worry, I've taken a shitload of pics; once I leave this country, I'll post a mass picture update.

For the first week, we've just traveled around in Beijing and Xian. I could talk about what we did, but I think it'd be much more effective if I explained with pictures, so I'll wait off on this until I'm in Korea.

There's a little over 35 WashU people in the summer study abroad program, and we're all simply studying amongst ourselves (meaning, we don't study with people from other colleges or programs). We're stationed at Fudan University in Shanghai, put in a foreign students' dorm; again, living just amongst ourselves. In other words, it's WashU in China, not a full immersion program.

The dorms are unexpectedly fancy. WashU has nice dorms, but this is comparable. Single rooms with private bathrooms, living room with couches and TV (albeit with only one English channel), kitchen with a small refrigerator, ACs, wooden floors, and free internet. Just a couple complaints: internet is a bit unstable at times, and there's no drying machine. The former, I could get by, since it's free, and I always have a lot of work to do anyway. Having no dryer kind of sucks, but manageable. We hang up our clothes on clotheslines on the closed-off balcony until they dry. It's done in Korea, so it's not weird to me, but a bit uncomfortable regardless. I'll live.

Classes got off to an intense start right from the get-go. The 35 or so of us are divided into three different levels, 2-4, with a majority of the people in level 2 (the level I'm in). All classes start at the ungodly hour of 8am, and ends around 10:40am (with a couple of breaks in between), followed by a 20-minute one-on-one talking session with one of the teachers at Fudan (actually all grad students here; side note: one of them is a fox).

All of us also have language partners (also grad students at Fudan), whom we meet Monday through Thursday for an hour, so we can ask them for help on homework and talk about random stuff. I have a guy (although you could've asked for either gender on the form we had to fill out way back when). I like him; he's pretty chill and he likes basketball. Although, I kinda regret not asking for a girl :/

We do one chapter per day; back at regular WashU, it's one chapter per week. In other words, we cram in a week's worth of work in a day. In terms of assessments, we have a test every Friday (covering the four chapters of the week), a chapter quiz (听写) for every day we don't have a test, and a weekly oral presentation that follows the Friday test. On top of that, we've all signed a language pledge, which states that we can only speak in Chinese in all situations (like that's really gonna happen). Plus, we have a "semester oral examination" and a "semester written examination," both amounting to 30% of a semester's grade. I currently have no idea how those are gonna work, nor do I really wish to know at this point. That's not all: this program gives us two letter grades, which means we're gonna have to take two of each of these semester examinations. Basically, it's like an academic holocaust for seven weeks in China. Yay?

Without any pictures to show off and me just babbling about my life, this post is probably the most uninteresting one thus far. So I'm gonna give my shot at redemption by listing some notable events that happened in China:
- Discovering that you can actually eat scorpions and starfish
- Drank hot orange juice for breakfast like a real Chinese person
- Climbed the Great motherfuckin' Wall (emphasis on the motherfuckin')
- Bought a fake Polo shirt, personalized chop stamp, and a waving Chairman Mao watch all for less than $15 total
- Saw the Chinese version of Michael Jackson dancing in multiple bars in multiple days
- Rode my first ever tandem bike on a wall
- Walked into the sex shop that was in front of our hotel in Beijing
- Was touched on my left leg by a cute Chinese girl on the train to Shanghai
- Learned how to play Majjong (only in China)
- Found out that Shanghai girls trump girls in Beijing and Xian
- Drank a flask of 白酒, containing 50% alcohol, which cost less than $2

Strolling by the river; internship recap

2009-06-05T11:32:00.007-05:00

Just dumping out my camera before I head to China tomorrow morning. These pictures are all from Han River, a good 15-minute walk from my apartment.

Ghetto basketball hoop on a ghetto basketball court. Who the hell plays on dirt? Maybe it's not that Asians are inherently bad at sports, after all. I doubt anyone can get very good with shitty equipment and environment.

With a ghetto basketball hoop, there's gotta be a ghetto bathroom trailer. I was pleasantly surprised that the toilets in there actually flushed. Where to, no one knows. Although, there was a huge puddle right outside...

Contrary to the picture, there was a shitload of people there.

I don't know what I was trying to accomplish with this one, but I guess it looks cool.

Although the background looks nice with the lights and all, I'm kinda disappointed that the rope isn't more in focus. It looked nice on the camera screen :/

Supposedly a water taxi? Had I found this earlier I would've commuted to work using this.

:O

========

I shouldn't actually be here right now writing this, seeing as how I need to wake up in 4 hours, so I'll keep it short; maybe I'll elaborate on a future post if I feel like it.

I finished my non-paid internship at Science TV yesterday. Strangely enough, I felt a bittersweet pang as I left the building, even though for the majority of the time, I sat in front of a computer and pretended like I was important. I think the most bittersweet part was that I was just getting comfortable at the workplace and with coworkers. Simply put, my preconceptions of Korean social culture were fully realized in the first two weeks (since I've never been alone in an environment that was so damn Korean in my life). While nothing was really mindblowing, it was kind of surprising to see that some of the stuff I presumed were actually true (if the boss offers you alcohol, then it's expected that you drink it, or you get owned).

Apart from cultural differences, working for a news channel was pretty interesting. They put me in charge of the teleprompter (no, I didn't type it out; I just controlled the scrolling) since the middle of the second week, and took me out to a few recordings on-scene. Through observing coworkers, I think being a news producer might not be that bad of a career option -- it seems like just the right amount of excitement and stability for someone like me. Going out there with a videocamera and capturing footage for the news seems appealing to me.

In other news, CHINA TOMORROW! WOOOO (fuck, 4 hours of sleep)

Photo excursions in Seoul

2009-05-30T11:00:00.006-05:00

All I've basically been doing since I got to Korea was sleep, wake up, go to work, drink, eat, pee, shit, and marvel over the vastness of the World Wide Web. So a few days ago, I decided to get off my ass to do something productive with my life. Thus, I set myself a goal to go on photo excursions whenever I get bored. This photo is from my first excursion. It's a close-up view of the exterior wall of a mall nearby. The lights behind each plate were constantly changing colors, and made neat designs of aquatic animals.

This is a second building of the same mall stated above. As you can see, the name of the mall is "The Galleria." This gets my vote for cliché name of the year.

I didn't really know what I was thinking when I took this picture, but I kind of like the way it turned out. I stood in the middle of the road for this (where cars can't pass -- what's the correct term for this area? Is there one?).

I couldn't find very many interesting things to take pictures of during my first photo excursion, so I decided to go home before I felt any more awkward for myself standing in the middle of throngs of people with only my trusty camera to shield me. On my walk back, I noticed a single rose head jutting out from a fence as if its main purpose in life is to hope. Of course, I had to take advantage of the scene.

This marks the start of my second photo excursion. I didn't really feel like going outside of the apartment, though, so I just took a bunch of pictures while walking up and down the building. There were too little successful pictures, but this is one that turned out pretty well. This is the view from the balcony of our apartment.

This is another one that turned out well. This is the immediate view that you get when you walk out of our apartment.

Presenting my Friday night's dinner at an Italian restaurant called 'Ncucina.' I think the description for the pasta was: linguine with white sauce and seafood covered with dough. In broken English, of course. It was delicious.

The restaurant was near Namsan tower, so we decided to head over there after dinner. On our way, we stopped by a balcony where I needed to snap a moment of the pretty landscape.

Namsan tower on the right, and an intriguing wire figure on the left. They had a good number of those wire figures hanging up in the vicinity, all with different poses.

To our surprise, there was a film crew there at Namsan Park apparently shooting a scene for a drama or a movie. I regretted not bringing my camera to work that day because I completely missed a great opportunity to get pictures of somber Korea (the hearse carrying the casket of the former President's corpse was traveling throughout the country; side note: RIP, 노무현), but this almost made up for it. I didn't recognize any of the actors or actresses, but my parents say a couple of actors were popular.

A shot of the temple (is that what this is called?) I got as we were leaving Namsan Park.

It seems as if my vocabulary has failed me tonight. I guess I'm tired =_=

Indoctrination is a form of slavery

2009-05-28T11:22:00.009-05:00

For one reason or another, I decided to spend my night watching the documentary, 'Jesus Camp,' on YouTube; I just finished watching it.

I couldn't be more pissed off at the fact that this kind of reality really exists in the world today.

I'm so irked right now that I don't even think I can write coherently and logically much longer. Maybe I'll write about it when I'm more calm. Instead, here are a few quotes from the documentary that I jotted down while I was watching:

"God can do anything! We can just say, 'God, fix the world!' This is a pretty sick, old world." - Becky Fischer, Pentecostal child minister

"When I grow up, I always thought it would be fun to be [someone] who paints nails because you would get a chance to tell them about the Lord." - Rachael, 9 years old

"Had it been in the Old Testament, Harry Potter would've been put to death!" - Becky Fischer

"There's a new church [formed] every two days in America. It's gotten enough growth to essentially sway every election. If the Evangelicals vote, they determine the election. It's a fabulous life!" - Paster Ted Haggard, President of the National Association of Evangelicals

"Democracy... is ultimately designed to destroy itself because we have to give everyone equal freedom, and ultimately, that's gonna destroy us. The perfect world is not gonna be perfect until Jesus is truly Lord." - Becky Fischer

I'm going to bed before I start punching the walls.

==== UPDATE [5.29.09, 5:54pm] ====

For starters, I'd just like to make it clear that I'm not here to bash the actual religion of Christianity, Christians, or any other religion or people affiliated with one.

Also, to prevent possible worry: I wasn't speaking literally when I said I would punch walls.

But there is no doubt that I was trembling with irritation throughout the majority of the movie.

I've taken some time to objectively reflect about what in 'Jesus Camp' ticked me off. Although I've successfully composed myself, I still find the whole thing absurd.

Like I said before, I'm not against Christianity itself. I question some of their ideas and thought processes, but I don't mind Christians as long as they willingly chose to believe in God and they feel that the path they chose is right for them.

Key phrase: WILLINGLY CHOSE TO BELIEVE.

This is the one thing that I have the biggest beef with in 'Jesus Camp.' It's blatant (unfortunately, too blatant) that innocent children are being brainwashed into Christianity. These kids should be out playing in the fields and watching TV, but instead, they're being told that science is crap and that Harry Potter should be executed. They speak as though the adults have been reading them bedtime stories about the greatness of God and the evil of everyone who doesn't love Him. Hell, there's a kid who says he "got saved" when he was five, "because [he] just wanted more of life." I mean, my five-year-old cousin is talkative and is smart for his age, but in no way does he say his life is so unfulfilling that he wants to start believing in God.

I'm a firm believer that religion should not be hit full-force onto young children. Each of us are born with the amazing human abilities to be rational and make choices, so children should be given the chance to exercise those abilities. At most, children can be led to discover God for themselves, but never should they be forced in any way (including indoctrination).

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if there's anything substantive that I can do as an individual. At the moment, all I can do is hope (and not punch the walls).

What makes us happy?

2009-05-21T03:00:00.002-05:00

1. Employing mature adaptations*
2. Education
3. A stable marriage
4. Not smoking
5. Not abusing alcohol
6. Some exercise
7. A healthy weight

* "Mature adaptations include altruism, humor, anticipation (looking ahead and planning for future discomfort), suppression (a conscious decision to postpone attention to an impulse or conflict, to be addressed in good time), and sublimation (finding outlets for feelings, like putting aggression into sport, or lust into courtship)."

Much thanks to George Vaillant for carrying out the longitudinal study, and to Joshua Wolf Shenk for writing about it.

Going back to the motherland, 2009

2009-05-17T11:47:00.009-05:00

I should probably be sleeping right now, since I start work tomorrow, but I was uploading/editing photos, and I knew that this would be a lot more fun than sleep. So here's my first photo update!

This is easily one of my favorite foods (although I still haven't found anything that can beat Chipotle). It's called 추어탕 in Korean, which roughly translates to 'loach soup' in English. It might sound like swine flu, but it's seriously amazing. And it HAS to be from this restaurant in Daegu. I had two servings of that shit before I had to come back to Seoul. Fuck, I'm hungry now.

Taken at my uncle's clothing store in Daegu. There's probably no point in saying this, but that's my grandfather behind the rack and out of focus.

One of my eleven cousins. Also one of the cuter ones. No big surprise.

Namdemun market in Seoul. It's basically a huge area with a shit-ton of street vendors, selling anything you could possibly imagine. And no, this photograph is not an exaggeration of how crowded it can get there.

At a sushi restaurant called Sawa in Gangnam of Seoul. Very good food, but wasn't very filling (but then again, I never get full from eating sushi).

I originally went to my cousin's "Gym Day," where kids his age (5-7ish) run around and go fucking nuts in an open gymnasium. It was way too loud and hectic, so I snuck out with my mom and started to roam around the building. Completely by chance, we found a wedding that was taking place in a separate hall. No one seemed to be standing guard at the doors, so I figured it was a good opportunity to take some photos and headed in. As my photo session came to an end, I was standing right at the end of the aisle when the bride and groom walked down, and they looked at me with the biggest WTF faces I've seen. Too bad I didn't get to snap that moment.

탕수육, which directly translates to 'sweet and sour chicken.' Good stuff.

Another one of my cousins. And another one of the cuter ones. I think I'm biased; the younger the child, the more I like him/her.

A lot of things

2009-05-14T12:34:00.015-05:00

I'm writing this because 1) I can't find anything better to do, and 2) I kinda wanted to write in this thing for a while, and now my mind's being clogged with ideas -- gotta dump it out while I can. Here goes:

Semester in review
Academically speaking, this past semester has been the worst one of college thus far (possibly the worst, period). Now that I think about it, it reminds me of sophomore year in high school when my grades weren't so spectacular then either.

One main difference: I have no immediate regrets this semester.

For most of my life before high school, I pretty much did nothing but study, like a lame and obedient Asian kid. Except I wasn't very good at it. As a matter of fact, I never really was. I always sort of got by with my slightly-above-average intelligence at pretty-much-average schools.

It didn't really help that I attended the #1 high school in the motherfucking nation (I don't like to say I graduated from that place, because to this day, I honestly believe I got admitted purely with luck). During freshmen year, I realized that I needed to work my ass off to get the same grades that I did before. And it worked fine for the first year -- but I got lazy the following year. Needless to say, my grades reflected my effort. I grew increasingly frustrated at everyone and everything, but I did nothing to change my laziness. I just constantly moped over the fact that I wasn't doing well. That year was, hands down, the worst in my life.

On the other hand, I was actually happy this semester (overall). Yes, I was still a lazy bum whenever I needed to study, but I invested my effort in something else: KSA. Although being the president for a club usually comes with immense responsibilities, I spent my soul on it not because I was obligated to do so, but I was passionate for it. And figures show, if you do what you like, you're happy. There was a shitload (for the lack of a better word) of work for the job, but there was always an overwhelming rewarding feeling at the end of every successful event that I certainly wouldn't mind living for.

Of course, grades are still important. Now that I'm heading into the second half of my undergraduate college life, I need to get my head in the fucking game and realize this preeminent fact. Much easier said than done, but let's just hope that I'm not so lackadaisical about my studies.

Dedication to the '09 graduates
The biggest reason why I have held KSA dear to my heart: the people involved are amazing. Among the most influential to me are the ones from the class of '09 (now graduated!). Commencement is today, so it's only appropriate to show my love for them. We sent off a total nine seniors, most of whom I've gotten to know pretty well. I spoke for a few at senior sendoff, but I was improvising, and I'm sure I sounded like I was. I'm not actually sure if any of them read my blog, but here's my redemption for those who do (feel free to pass it along to the other KSA seniors):

I may speak Korean fairly decently, but I've never actually addressed anyone as nuna or hyung. I still don't think I will in the immediate future, but if I ever had to, it would be for you guys. You guys have undoubtedly been some of the best people I've ever met, complete with all of your flaws and idiosyncrasies. Thank you for giving me inspiration, for being trustworthy, for trusting in me, for giving me rides, for being my date to formal (but not dancing haha), for always being the sunshine on a rainy day, for giving me stuff to do, for hanging out with me in that stupid third floor study room of Olin library, for being a model for my photography project, for providing space in that amazing apartment (now filled with so many memories), for making me drink 14 shots on my birthday, for having opinions, for being there for me, and for just plain existing. Good luck with whatever lies in your path, and PLEASE stay in touch!

Summer plans
I'm currently at my parent's apartment in Seoul, Korea, and have been since last Thursday (...or is it Friday? fucking time difference). Since I got here, I've just stayed at home and haven't really done much. It's definitely been relaxing to sleep for eight hours, eat, browse the internet, watch TV, and breathe, but I'm starting to get restless. I think I'll try to see if there's a library nearby where I can check out some books (ahem, written in English) to read.

I also start work next Monday. My dad found me a so-called internship spot at a company called Science TV (subset of YTN, a news channel in Korea). Unfortunately, it's a non-paid internship. This is probably why they called it an internship in the first place (since I assume all jobs are paid?). I'm presuming that I'll just be a bitch for them. Well, at least I'll have something to do.

For the majority of my summer, I'll be in China! I'm doing a school-sponsored summer study abroad program. Basically, I'll be learning Chinese for a couple months. I'm flying into Beijing on 6/6, and will be going down to Shanghai, where the bulk of the program is (at Fudan University). I'll be staying there til the end of July. I'm getting giddy at the idea of being in a foreign country without parental supervision in the immediate vicinity and where grades don't matter as much. Excellent.

When I'm done with China, I'll come back to Korea, do a couple more weeks of the Science TV shit, fly to America (to home in Virginia), and waste a couple of weeks there before I have to fly west to WashU again for another exciting year! YAY! (fuck me)

During my entire summer, one of my goals is to take a shitload of photos. I'll routinely upload my favorites (from a week or so) to my blog.

Wow, fuck, I wrote a lot

New blog URL

2009-05-04T21:16:00.002-05:00

Just impulsively decided to change my blog URL, mainly because the other one (labyrinthofruminations.blogspot.com) took me like twenty minutes to type out every time. This one (chj88.blogspot.com) is nicely personalized, and saves everyone 17 characters to type.

If you've been following my other blog, stop following that one and follow this one instead. I'll be deleting the other one soon enough.

Photo contest

2009-05-02T03:12:00.002-05:00

Grilling burgers during the KSA/AAA basketball tournament, WashU (S40 Swamp), 9.27.2008
33.0mm f/5.7 1/512s ISO200

Grilling 불고기 at Spirit of Korea, WashU (Clocktower), 4.17.2009
18.0mm f/10.0 1/250s ISO200

That's interesting, both images look much brighter here than they do in my iPhoto...

Anyway, those are the two photographs I submitted for the WashU Focus photo contest.

Unfortunately, I found out about the existence of the contest only a week prior to the first submission deadline (4/30). I wanted to turn something in, but due to the time constraint, I only had to work with the shots that I had already taken.

According to the website, the judging criteria for each photograph are: 1) overall effectiveness in communicating the WashU student experience, 2) creativity, 3) originality, and 4) photo quality. My gut tells me that the order of the criteria corresponds to their order of importance. Arguably, the two photos that I submitted are creative, original, and of high quality, but I'm not quite sure if it's effective in illustrating the so-called WashU experience.

It also doesn't help that I continuously seem to discover a ton of good student photographers on campus. Ever since I became interested in photography early in the school year, I would notice more and more quality photos on Facebook whenever friends got tagged and news feeds popped up on my home page (I'm sure there's some sort of attentional bias coming into play here). I'd click on these photos, and end up looking through the entire album. Before I realize what I'm doing, I'm looking through all of the photographer's albums. Having taken a photography class last semester, I'd like to think that I have some objective sense of who can take better pictures than I can -- off the top of my head, I can already think of five or six that I found on Facebook.

So I thought getting myself to submit photos to this contest would keep me focused towards a goal, rather than to simply be jealous of those who are better than me. Since there are three more judging cycles for the contest (12/5/09, 2/20/10, 5/1/10), maybe I'll actually have some good "WashU experience" photos for future submissions. The ultimate prize would be to have my photo framed and hung up in the DUC, plus $150 cash. For the cherry on top, I'll (hopefully) get better at taking photos myself, and maybe I, too, will inspire future Facebook stalkers.

A weekend with no obligations

2009-04-28T16:12:00.004-05:00

This past weekend was, by far, the best weekend of the semester (possibly of the year). The weekend of the 17th was amazing with its own reasons (rewarding satisfaction of a successful Spirit of Korea, getting my white Ralph Lauren shirt dirty while trying to pie one of the fastest mofos I've seen, hitting up a prefrosh party with a cardboard John McCain, etc.), making it the second best weekend of the semester, but this past one can't be topped. What made it so good was the fact that I was free of any immediate responsibilities. For lack of a better comparison, I felt like I just got out of jail.

Without further ado, here are the highlights of the weekend, in (somewhat) chronological order (names are depicted as an X for a variety of reasons):

FRI / 4.24

Senior sendoff
Going to WILD and witnessing a couple having sex (I think they were having sex..?)
Trying to get on the rooftops of various buildings on campus (but failing)
Placing a beer can in Jesus's hand
Just plain fucking around under a decapitated tree
Making smores and roasting hot dogs using an indoor fireplace

SAT / 4.25

Eating a Subway footlong and throwing around a frisbee at Forest Park
Watching the gorillas sitting and the penguins standing at the zoo
Losing $15 by playing poker
Playing a couple games of 21 after the basketball court lights turned off
Witnessing an intoxicated X steal three bananas and a pizza sign from Bear's Den
Haphazardly going to a party while still carrying the basketball
Having to leave the party after an RCD from a different ResCollege followed X (who was carrying a beer can) inside
Going to a different party, and downing three shots in about five minutes before heading to BD again
Watching X do some crazy shit to a bike
Witnessing X steal about three boxes of fries from BD
Going back to the party (along the way, witnessing X spray ketchup everywhere)
Taking a shot of either vodka or rum whenever I comprehended the conversation at hand
Going to the swings..?
..Not remembering anything that happened afterwards

SUN / 4.26

Waking up dizzy at 2pm, and realizing that I missed a meeting
Watching one of the best finishes of an NBA game ever (Bulls vs. Celtics)
Eating a hearty bowl of pho on the Loop
Getting told to basically stfu by someone we saw at the restaurant
Being the lone man in a basketball game of 2 vs. 1 after the lights turned off (unfortunately, losing the game)
Sitting on the ledge and eating a pint of Passion Fruit ice cream with two friends

Fuck, now I have to study.

Sex

2009-04-20T16:01:00.001-05:00

Spirit of Korea, WashU, 4.17.09
18.0mm f/4.5 1/50s ISO200

I just jizzed in my pants.

2009 NBA Playoff predictions

2009-04-16T05:29:00.001-05:00

I should be sleeping right now, but it feels like I've had at least a couple of energy drinks. Why so wired? Two words: NBA playoffs.

Tonight (or technically, yesterday night) was insane in NBA-land, with teams swapping playoff seeds left and right. Now that the dust has finally settled, the seeds are locked. The playoffs begin on Saturday, but not without a mass of predictions in the next couple of days or so. Before I get accused of riding on others' opinions, I present to you my predictions for the postseason:

EDIT [4.16.09, 5:03PM]: "It's not official that [Garnett's] out for the entire playoffs, but it's official as far as I'm concerned," Doc Rivers said. "I just don't see how. I hope I'm wrong, but I just don't see it." Unfortunately for KG and Boston, he's not going to be fully recovered to play during the playoffs. Since I had made my picks before this report was released, I'm going to take the right to change my picks (only the ones with the Celtics) because the playoffs haven't started yet. Just for reference, my original picks regarding the Celts were: 4-1 vs. the Bulls, 4-2 vs. the Magic, and 3-4 vs. the Cavs.

Eastern Conference
First Round
(1) Cleveland Cavaliers sweep (8) Detroit Pistons, 4-0
You've got a team with the best record on one side, and an unmotivated team with AI playing on the other. Which would you pick? Easy sweep.

(4) Atlanta Hawks over (5) Miami Heat, 4-2
It's hard to bet against Dwyane Wade, but I realized that it'd be pretty hard to beat this Hawks team single-handedly. I still count on Wade to pour in his 35-40 and get his team a couple of wins.

(2) Boston Celtics over (7) Chicago Bulls, 4-2
Even with KG out, the Celtics shouldn't have a huge problem beating the Bulls. Rose may give the leprechauns a good run, but he's only inexperienced rookie.

(3) Orlando Magic sweep (6) Philadelphia 76ers, 4-0
The Sixers have been pretty bad recently, which is definitely not a good way to lead up into the playoffs. They barely won in OT vs. the Cavs, and LeBron and Mo didn't even play. The scores might look close (at Philly), but with Dwight in full force, I call a sweep.

Conference Semifinals
(1) Cavaliers over (4) Hawks, 4-1
I can see the Hawks squeeze out a win in Atlanta, but otherwise, I don't see much hope for them. LeBron is too hungry to get beat more than once.

(2) Celtics over (3) Magic, 4-3
With KG now reportedly out, predicting this matchup just became harder. The Magic are 2-2 vs. the Celts in the regular season, and their chances got better with KG gone, but I still can't see them win the series. Regardless, this is gonna be a fun 7-game series.

Conference Finals
(1) Cavaliers over (2) Celtics, 4-2
This pick became a lot easier now that KG's not gonna be there. I still think the Celtics will be a tougher matchup for the Cavs than the Pistons or the Hawks will be, but I can't see this stretch to seven anymore.

Western Conference
First Round
(1) Los Angeles Lakers sweep (8) Utah Jazz, 4-0
The Lakers know they're hot, and will undoubtedly play hot. It also helps that Jazz is terrible on the road. Pretty easy sweep.

(5) Houston Rockets over (4) Portland Trailblazers, 4-3
This was probably my toughest pick, especially because I want the Blazers to win. I think Blazers are one of the few teams who could put up a good fight with the Lakers (Blazers are one of only three teams that beat the Lakers more than once). Alas, they don't have a winning record vs. the Rockets. Plus, TMac's not playing, so I see the Rockets finally get out of the first round this year. All I know is, this is gonna be an exciting series.

(2) Denver Nuggets over (7) New Orleans Hornets, 4-2
This was tough as well. I originally thought this matchup wouldn't be very interesting, but now I realize that it'll be Billups vs. Chris Paul. That in itself will be fun to watch. If I had to pick one upset, it would be this one, but I can't really see that happening. It'll come down to experience, of which Billups has more of than CP3.

(3) San Antonio Spurs over (6) Dallas Mavericks, 4-2
Mavs have played decently as of late, but the Spurs are the Spurs. Yes, they don't have Manu, but Duncan and Parker have been through this before. The Mavs will give the Spurs a good run for their money, but it won't stretch to seven games.

Conference Semifinals
(1) Lakers sweep (5) Rockets, 4-0
Could the Lakers bring out the broom for the first two series? I think so. The Lakers have the more drive and determination. Plus, they swept the Rockets in the regular season (4-0), so what's so hard about doing it in the playoffs? At least the Rockets will have made it out of the first round.

(3) Spurs over (2) Nuggets, 4-3
This was a tough pick, especially considering the fact that there will be no Ginobili. But Spurs do have the experience, and past results have shown that run-and-gun teams like the Nuggets don't get very far in the playoffs.

Conference Finals
(1) Lakers over (3) Spurs, 4-1
This is exactly the same scenario as last year. Same teams with the same seeds, both fighting for the Western Conference title. And I predict the same results as last year.

NBA Finals
Lakers over Cavaliers, 4-2
I feel like it's an extremely gutsy move to pick against LeBron, but despite the Cavs having the league's best record, I dare say that the Lakers are the better team. Before the Cavs lost at home vs. the Sixers (when they didn't play LeBron), the only team to beat them at the Q is the Lakers. Plus, the Lakers are the only team that the Cavs haven't won a game against yet.

So that's it. The Los Angeles Lakers are your 2009 NBA Finals Champions. You read it here first.

Sorry, I've never really found marbles to be all that tasteful

2009-04-11T16:32:00.004-05:00

Psychologist: Do you have any special powers or abilities that other people don't have?
Edward: I don't know; I don't date women.
Psychologist: Can you explain what you mean by that?
Edward: Well, if you had a star in the middle of your head, would you swallow marbles?

Apparently, Edward has schizophrenia. This was part of an interesting (and true) case study that I've just read in my Abnormal Psychology textbook. It just made being a psychologist a whole lot more appealing.

==== UPDATE [4.11.09, 8:37pm] ====

Another excerpt:

Psychologist: Have you been nervous or tense lately?
Schizophrenic patient: No, I got a head of lettuce.
Psychologist: You got a head of lettuce? I don't understand.
Schizophrenic patient: Well, it's just a head of lettuce.
Psychologist: Tell me about the lettuce. What do you mean?
Schizophrenic patient: Well... lettuce is a transformation of a dead cougar that suffered a relapse on the lion's toe. And he swallowed the lion and something happened. The... see, the... Gloria and Tommy, they're two heads and they're not whales. But they escaped with herds of vomit, and things like that.

I don't mean to sound callous, but if schizophrenics were just a LITTLE less random (and weren't mentally ill), they could be prime comedians.

I feel like I'm living in NYC

2009-03-30T20:50:00.004-05:00

View from the top of the Empire State Building, NYC, 3.9.2009
30.0mm f/4.5 1/6s ISO800

These past two weeks or so have been the busiest weeks in my life, hands down. I had a hunch that being the president of a club as great as KSA would be hard, but reality exceeded expectations by a shitload (for lack of a better term).

What really made it so stressful was not because I was the head honcho planning for a big event, but because of how I let my personality get the best of me during the planning. Most of my close friends know that I'm a hopeless pessimist. Unfortunately, to me, the glass is half empty, no matter what angle you look at it. I'm also hugely anal-retentive, usually about minute details, but especially for things that I'm passionate about. I generally don't have much passion about very many things in life, but for better or for worse, KSA is one of them. Combine all three of these traits together, and you get the me that I was in the past two weeks. In short, pessimism + anal-retentiveness + passion = high stress + vast mood swings.

Amidst these hectic times, I never really studied for any of my classes, and alas, my grades reflect my effort. Moreover, I've cooked myself cup ramen about seven times in the past 10 days, and have forgotten the last time I actually had eight solid hours of sleep. Along with my grades and health, I've effectively lost sight of my true priorities.

Don't get me wrong -- I have no regrets. I learned more in the past two weeks than I have all of last semester. I'm thrilled to say that with the help of my exec board, formal was an incredible success that initially seemed improbable.

At the end of the day, though, I'd rather be more balanced and calm. I'm definitely not fit for a manic lifestyle. If the past two weeks was a glimpse of what a New York City lifestyle might be like, I'll take St. Louis, thanks.

==== UPDATE [4.12.09, 3:20am] ====

I take back that last sentence. What I meant to say was that I'd rather not live in such a fast-paced city like NYC. If I had the choice, I would not live in St. Louis for the rest of my life, though. Apparently, St. Louis ranked as #10 in this year's Forbes' list of America's most miserable cities. I don't think I'd want to raise a family in a city that's notoriously miserable.

Shameless promotion

2009-03-17T01:53:00.001-05:00

Flier design: Deon Ng

Flier design: Christine Stavridis

I live vicariously through the videos I watch

2009-03-05T17:19:00.002-06:00

I slept through my alarm today. AGAIN. This is already the second time this semester that I've unintentionally skipped a class because I overslept (last time was actually exactly one week ago, when I woke up at 3:30pm -- yeah, you read that right). I can't recall a time when I've ever done that before. My life seems to be slowly going down the drain.

Speaking of going down the drain. I spent a very interesting last Friday. Yes, it's already been six days, but that means it's just THAT worthy to write about. Long story short, I (with some friends) ended up watching shocker videos online. Originally, I had planned to study for my midterms that day. Don't ask.

If I remember correctly, here's the sequence of videos that I watched: 2 girls 1 finger; 1 guy 1 cup; BME pain olympics. We ended up recording reaction tapes for each, but only thought to record it straight from the computer for the last one. Just for kicks, below are the BME pain olympics reaction videos (which ended up being pretty hysterical).

WARNING: DO NOT WATCH THE ACTUAL SHOCKER VIDEOS (unless you get turned on by that kind of shit -- I won't judge). Trust me, you'll regret it. Actually, Ian gives a good commentary in the second reaction video; it's like a verbal preview of what you can expect for BME pain olympics.

BME pain olympics reaction: #1

BME pain olympics reaction: #2

[Note: In case you got your own ideas, I'm only smiling at the start of the second video because I was thinking more about the others' reactions, rather than about the video itself. Things quickly changed thereafter.]

The obligatory welcome post

2009-03-03T19:03:00.000-06:00

You've just landed on Chang's new blog. That means you either care deeply about me, or you're planning to get rid of me and all aspects of my mofo-ness. Whatever the case may be, welcome! (If you don't know who the hell I am, that's ok; I extend the greeting out to you, as well.)

Basically, I'll post anything I find interesting, whether it be personal anecdotes or things I just come across. Of course, this doesn't mean that everything I post will interest you. If it doesn't, just ignore it, or post a comment saying that it sucked donkey balls (non-negative comments are also welcome).

I mainly created this blog so I can waste time. That having said, my posting schedule will be erratic. Although my GPA may not support my words, I still do care about my grades, and I like to think that I do have a life outside of sitting in front of my Mac and thinking of whether or not to post about 2G1C (which, actually, may be my next post topic).

Fuck, I don't know how to end this shit --