Day 175: Learning

photo credits to tumblr

lately i’m realizing that i have so much to learn. most of the time, i feel like i should’ve already learned this a long time ago, but… the reality is, i haven’t.

1. i don’t know how to love
2. i don’t know how to be selfless

if i could HONESTLY sum up LIFE in one word, it would be unfair. forreals. life is just. unfair.

i think many of you could vouch for me when i say that, no? not everything falls under Hamurabi’s rule of “eye for an eye”.. how easy life would be if that were the case, right? maybe.

two things:

1. love is not fair
2. selflessness is not fair

it’s really not. in both situations, you’re thinking about others before yourself.. now, what if those ‘others’ you’re thinking about have hurt you in some way? then you’d think, ‘oh, it’s REALLY not fair’… but…

was it fair that Jesus, someone who had the perfect eternity going for Him in heaven, came down onto this very earth and was put to death for something He did NOTHING to deserve? no.

if you think about it that way, the “unfairness” that we tend to label “Life” turns into

“thankfulness”

.

we shouldn’t even be living right now, right? but. we are. WE ARE. each breath we take is a blessing and each step we take is a miracle..

although, life may seem unfair… i want to learn to be thankful. it’s easy to be thankful when everything is good; it’s easy to be thankful when you know there’s something better waiting for us than what this world can give…

Day 174: Grandpa’s Day of Birth

one of the only pictures of my gramps that i've ever seen; my eemo used to have this picture right on her night stand..

today was more family time

the first time i’d seen my cousin, annie, since like… january… seriously -_-” and it was the first time i was with more than one of my cousins at a time! julie AND annie were with me! chyeah. after church, we went to woodfield and shopped around it was fun! i hadn’t gone with them in a long time. so, when we left, the adults told us to come back around 5 so we could all eat dinner together.. and, we did get back by then. but the food wasn’t ready for another 2 hours! =(

annie had to leave by 650p, and julie had barely eaten all day PLUS, she was mad tired… so julie was very cranky, and annie didn’t even get to eat before she left -_-” i actually got pretty upset because our family hadn’t seen annie in months, and they couldn’t even pack food for her because of some tradition… ugh.

anyways. saw christopher later that night. bowled a few games, but i wasn’t in the mood to bowl, so we left. got some bk, and sat in the car for a little bit, then we split.

Day 173: Ohana

my eemos, samchoon from Korea, grandma, mom and dad in front of the Lyric Opera building on the chicago river; i want to watch an opera here! OH. and i know y'all can't really see from here, but the only two XYs that hung out with us today wore the exact same thing: navy blue polo from Polo and jeans -_-''

my whole family has gone into the city before, but that was when we were much younger. hrm, actually. maybe not my WHOLE family, just some of us.. we went to the Shedd however, today, most of the adults in my family and i went downtown for the day!

-train at 10:37a
-bought cta one day fun passes
-stopped for a quick meal at jimmy john’s
-headed towards  the Field Museum
-looked around in there for a couple hours
-took a break by the lake: the adults got hot dogs; not ALL of them did, but about 4 of them? man, so expensive… my mom said a bottle of Aquafina (bad) water cost $3!!!!!! -_-”
-headed down Michigan
-enjoyed the Wendella boat tour; we didn’t do the sunset one because we didn’t know what we’d do just waiting around for it, so we did the regular 90 tour which ended up taking around 2 hours because getting the boats out of the lake (due to a storm) was taking a long long time -_-”

• saw a rainbow
• saw the duality of a sunny sky and a stormy sky side-by-side twas awesome!
• the waters were pretty crazy compared to when chris and i went on the tour, a few days back
• the boat was much smaller than the one chris and i went on, so i was kinda sad (for my family) but.. s’all g =)

-started to rain after we got off the boat
-walked down Michigan some more
-they wanted to eat at the same place that my older cousin, annie and i went to eat: Grand Lux Café… so we did.
-afterwards, we were gonna go up to John Hancock, but.. it was already 9:30p by the time we were done eating, and the train was scheduled for 10:30p and then another one at 12:30a, and i honestly was SO tired from getting so little sleep the night before and from walking around all day, so we decided that we’d just head back towards the train station after dinner. i kinda wish we’d gone up because… well, the view of the city is just magnificent from Big John’s observatory, but.. i guess we’ll have to do that some other time.
-went home.

i actually had some fun with my family in the city at first, i didn’t think i was going to because.. i was the only “kid” there, from our family.. but, at the Field museum, while we were walking through the animal sections, i basically made fun of everyone in our family and called them a nasty animal. hahahaha, well, all of them weren’t nasty, just some of them =b but, i’m an awesome cheetah. i wish i remembered which animals corresponded to my family members.. haha

afterwards, everyone that went + my baby cousin, julie, slept over my house! julie and i made a midnight run to jewel/osco and just walked around there. she originally wanted to get some acne medicine or face wash or something because she said she was “breaking out” with a tiny pimple on the lower part of her cheek… man, people blessed with good skin… >_>” hahaha but we ended up getting… some other things, which i can’t really remember right now.

also, we rented a few movies from Red Box so we could watch them when we got back home. we rented Ninja Assassin, for the adults because they wanted to watch Bi in it haha, and Shutter Island, for us to watch. i saw it while it was released in theaters, but she hadn’t, so we decided to get that one. it was good =) but i was so tired.. i fell asleep towards the last half of the movie.. she, however, stayed up to finish that movie, watch cartoon network, and slept at freaking 7am -_-” she’s crazy, but i love her

–

if you guys don’t know yet–i LOVE the city of Chicago. i just LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

however.

it is a bit bittersweet. lots of good and bad memories when i think of the city. i was reminded of some of those bad memories that are associated with Chicago when i went out this day with my family; i don’t know why God was doing that to me, but i think He was trying to be humorous… >_>” haha. a mean yet funny kind of humor, you know what i mean? like the kind of humor you can use with kindergarteners because you know they’re still so naive and such, but it could be kinda mean, too? haha. anyways, yeah. so, i was in kind of a bum mood; and a lot of times, i feel this way when i’m in Chicago, but i try not to think about it, because i don’t want those bad memories to overpower me being able to make new, good memories, know what i’m sayin’?

anyhoot; i could walk around  Chicago forever.. just give me my walking shoes, an ipod with infinite battery life (that can also fit all my music), and some water and a book..i’m gone.

Day 172: Dozebo with a Side of Dunbins

sam "chicken little" posing with his garfield

so, on friday, july 9, i actually had a chance to visit the Brookfield Zoo again with a different group of peeps and. meh. ionno. these kids were very troublesome… haha, they talk back a lot and stuff whereas the younger kids will just listen to you, or if they don’t… at least they’re uber cute, right? =b jk, kinda.. haha

anywho, it was pretty hot this day. it wasn’t as hot as it was on wednesday when the younger kids went, but… man… it was still hot! so, they had this water spout thing where it, well,… spouted water? hahaha. it was a mist of cold water; felt nice.

water misting spout thing @ Brookfield Zoo

alright. so.. after work, christopher and i hung out, as usual. and to be honest… i don’t remember EXACTLY what we did… but, i know that somehow, we ended up at Dunkin Robins on Dempster! hahaha. honestly, the last time i remember being there was in the summer of 2005! haha. i remember that charley drove me there after…church…? cuz a bunch of people were meeting up there. maybe it was a missions team thing.. hmm, probably.. anyways, but yeah. and i got rainbow sherbet.

but. today, we, christopher and i, spent a lot of time there! i think we actually didn’t stay at his house because the power was out :/ but, it was a nice change of pace! i didn’t know that Dunkin Robins had free wifi! we actually got there around 7? or 8? i’m not too sure, but christopher decided that he’d give the car to jonny for the rest of the night after cyc friday night was over because jonny and a couple of other cyc students decided to go to the 찜찔 방 by H-mart and then go to six flags in the morning! such crazy cyc kiddies so yeah. after christopher gave him the car, we took my car and drove BACK to Dunkin Robins! hahahaha

OH OH OH, i remember what we did before Dunkin Robins! hahaha. the weather was beautiful, so i suggested that we go to the dock/gazebo at the glen to just read and chill he took lots of pictures, and we did very little reading =) hehe. i think it was our first time up in the gazebo with each other! lots of firsts this summer.. haha it’s like we just started dating haha

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these are just a few of the photobooth pictures i took at the dock! i forgot my actual camera, so i had to use my phone and my macbook haha. i know, it’s weird to forget my real camera and bring my actual computer instead, huh.. oh well i’m weird. haha

oh, and for that picture where i’m pursing my lips, please don’t focus on it. hahaha, try to see the reflection from the glasses! those are actually my little bro’s glasses–jonny–so, thank you, jonny, for letting me where them!

we haven’t stayed out that late in a while, actually. we stayed at Dunkin Robins until… after 1? and yeah. i got upset at him for something that i shouldn’t have… =\ so i ruined a good day because i was selfish (nothing new…).. blah. miahn =(

Day 171: @chriskim818 and @munchcon in the Sit-A :)

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today was really really fun
july 8! kind of “our day”, i guess you could say.
it started off pretty normal, work for me, tutoring for him, and then we met up afterwards, ate some mandu and blueberries, took the train downtown, and just… walked down to michigan ave, like we usually do while we were walking towards michigan, he asked me if i wanted to go on an architecture tour of the city. he’d actually asked me this much earlier in the summer, but i said no; however, today i felt an urge to say yes, so i did! hahah. we actually ended up going on it, and it was 2 hours of awesome chicago and awesome christopher (+ his baby: nala, the nikon d90. i don’t think he’s gonna like that name because i just made it up on the spot. hahahaha) he’ll have pictures up on his zenfolio sometime soon (hopefully hehe)

right before we got on the boat, i started getting really itchy on my arms, so i thought i was getting bitten by lots and lots of bugs (which isn’t unusual).. it stopped for a while when i got on the boat, but as it got darker, i got itchier! it started getting dark kinda fast, so i didn’t even really look at what i was scratching, but later, when i looked at my arms/legs under light, i was starting to get blotchy… so i told/showed christopher, and he confirmed that it was hives.

yes, yes, i know what y’all are asking… “WHAT ARE YOU ALLERGIC TO, CONNIE???”

unfortunately, i do not know… this was the second time in my life that i’d ever broken out in hives (first time was in the summer of… 03? at the vega’s household after i ate some chapchae that their dad had cooked–it was so good. he’s such a good chef! ).. and i was thinking about the things that i had eaten that day, and i had no idea what i was allergic to… =\

but. being the good boyfriend that he is, he texted one of his friends who’s in pharm school (thank you, christopher’s friend! ) and asked what we should do. she said benadryl is a must, and then some coritisol to help relieve the itching. we got some benadryl, or like walgreens-brand benadryl and it definitely helped!

yeah, i’m making a big deal about my little hives-outbreak haha, but it was kinda scary for me. hahaha bc when i usually have an allergic reaction, it’s to furry animals, mainly pet dander, so.. i had no idea what had spurred this reaction :/

we all made it home, safely!

a great 7/8 thank you, christopher! you is awesome, g.

side note: the reason it’s “sit-A” and not “sit-E” is because of CHRISGOPHER =b haha. he’s sitting next to me as i type this, and he said “you’re copying the last post!” hahaha so i changed it to “sit-a” like ‘CITAYYYYY’ hahahaha. i’m not lame at all, i know.

Day 170: 사자, 자자, 문

during gym time-- daniel mun lying on the floor in the midst of all the chaos of the other pre-k to 1st graders

usually during gym time, the kids love it when we tell them that we’re gonna be going outside, and today, that was also the case. however, about 5 minutes after we got to the park, there was no screaming, no running around, and very limited physical activity whatsoever. this was shocking, because this is when the kids can be their crazy selves and not get in [much] trouble for it. so, after we came back inside, got these kiddies drinks, paul suggested that we just chill (literally) in the kindergarten room–which has the BEST AC in the whole building!

so, while the kids were running around and jumping off tables, daniel mun (the children’s pastor’s son), i guess felt super duper tired, so he decided to take the blankets we use in class for nap time as his own blankets and set up his little “bed” on the mat, which he later moved to the floor, while EVERYONE else was playing! i thought it was so cute.. i get the vibe that he’s kinda spoiled–i’m not alone in this thought–so i usually try not to adore him, but omgosh, today… he was adorable

i searched "lion" on google, and this was the 15th image posted. i had to post it cuz it's freaking hilarious hahaha

question that came up during college group today:

what does it mean to “be blessed”?

this question actually brought back a lot of memories of cyc in a blob–i remember asking p.david this exact same question… but i don’t really remember the answer… :/ i think  i wrote it down in one of my journals, but i have no idea which one it would be in :/ but, yeah. just thought i’d put the food-for-thought out there for y’all

oh btw, thank you guys for reading my project365 o_O i get random rushes of people, and it makes me happy y’all are mostly just reading it now because you guys are bored out of your minds–NOT saying that you don’t have friends–but c’mon, not EVERY day is the funnest day ever =b anyways. even if you guys are reading because this is the last thing to do, i’m thankful

Day 169: CYC in the SIT-E

cyc hangout part II

so, cyc’s hang out last week kinda… didn’t go as planned, so PJ wanted to do something really fun today for the hang out: BIKING AT NAVY PIER

honestly, this totally made my day when i heard that this was what we were gonna do!

sidenote: christopher and i decided to tag along again because we love cyc forreal, we do. well, i do, at least

anyway. yeah, so i was really happy and really surprised that we were gonna go into the city at like 7pm! when we got there, we found out that to ride the quad-cycle-things, you need to be 18 or 18+ or you need to be with a parent/guardian? so.. we ended up not being able to bike around like we wanted to :/ but… i wasn’t too bummed because we were in the city, which i love!

we ended up just eating inside the food court at navy pier and then walking around the actual pier there was a cruise ship called “Kanan” and we were like, ‘hey! it’s for CYC! “Kanan” pronounced “Canaan”!’ haha we had a few good laughs.

cyc actually kinda had some sort of a photo shoot, thanks to christopher and his photog skills. the pictures look really cool from what i saw on his camera. hopefully, they’ll be posted soon.

i really miss cyc.. i know i’ve said that a lot in my past posts, but i’m always reminded of how thankful i really should be for Canaan, CYC, our leaders (past, present, and future), and all the students. man, God worked wonders in me when i was at CYC. i can only imagine what He has in store for these youngins!

so thankful for CYC!!

Day 168: Round Three!

the dock at the glen

so, monday, July 5th, was not a very productive day whatsoever. this was actually one of the few days i got to sleep in because i didn’t have work or something going on in the morning, which required me to wake up early. honestly, it was kinda bittersweet, because… i really don’t like waking up late AT ALL… but.. it was well-needed rest forreals.

anyways, got out of bed around noon, chilled around my house until around 1:30p then headed off to chris’s. we actually didn’t work out right away, like i thought we were gonna do, because… we just didn’t feel like it… it was uber hot outside and chris was feeling tired, so yeah. he napped for a little bit while i started making his new bracelet and watched A Lot Like Love. i haven’t seen that movie since it came out in theaters! 5 years ago already… wow… time flies…

we actually decided to do Yoga X (p90x yoga) around… 7:45p, and freaking A.. one of the reasons i really really really REALLY REALLY REALLY don’t like p90x is because it’s SOOOOOOOOO freaking time consuming. like, the shortest workouts are an hour, i think. well, i guess it’s safer to say that MOST of the p90x workouts are one full hour. that’s SO much time. i mean, if i felt like i had the time to do all that MAYBE i’d do it (probably not because it’s so much weight training), but… c’mon… compared to insanity’s 43-45 minute workouts… p90x is WAY too time consuming for me. ok, anywho. p90x yoga is 90 MINUTES long!!!! WTJUNX. so… we actually ended around like 9:15p, and decided to head out to try and catch the glenview firework show, which we thought would start around then. chris took pictures, like usual, and i just sat on the car door with the window open and watched from there.

afterwards, err. actually, earlier in the day, i had an urge to go to the dock at the glen, because i hadn’t been there in a while, and i told chris that the view of the sky from that dock is really pretty while the sun is setting, so we should go there. since we didn’t end up going earlier or when the sun was actually setting, i had an urge to go after the fireworks, so we headed that way. we walked around the glen–the nature-y part of the glen. we ended up on the dock and looked around the sky to realize that there were a few other places that were finishing up their own firework show.

the breeze was amazing there, and it was so incredibly peaceful. i told chris that anyone could fall in love out there, and i meant it. the aura was just perfect for falling in love. (cue ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’ hehe) and because we went to the dock that night, i decided to put this picture up. i love it there.. and the little gazebo, which is on higher ground.

Day 167: Actual 4th of July

roger and christopher; they love each other. i asked them to take a picture, and this is how they posed..

so 4th of July actually fell on a sunday this year–which i think is the first that i ever remember being on a sunday–so i went to church and afterwards, christopher and i drove Jonny, Grace (his girlfriend), and Joolee chin to the beach. Christopher and i decided to chill at caribou for a while until we had to pick up Jonny and Grace again. after we dropped off Grace, we hung out at Christopher’s and tried to decide what we should do for the rest of the night! though we’d watched fireworks the night before, i wanted to watch fireworks again at Melas, so we decided to head over there with a few other people and do just that!

side note: so, Melas has a carnival every year during the 4th of july week, and i usually end up going there to watch fireworks.. and… since Christopher and i never watched the fireworks there, i thought we should i’m glad other people were there, too! it was mucho fun! also, there is ALWAYS one ride that i loooove to ride at carnivals: Tilt-A-Whirl. i really wanted to go on it while we were at the carnival at Melas, but there were SO many people, and we were kinda carrying a lot of stuff, and i didn’t think Roger and Christopher wanted to go on with me hahaha. and i didn’t wanna go alone! so i didn’t go on it =( s’all right. next year!

anywho. Kenneth, Sullivan, and Daniel Chung were supposed to join us, and 2/3 of them did! Kenneth was a party pooper and didn’t end up coming out! JK haha he actually had dinner with his family so it was Christopher, Roger, Sullivan, and Daniel and i watching the fireworks with a bunch of other people at Melas. i thought it was a great show afterwards, we went to eat at Denny’s!

actually, this is the first time ever that Christopher and i watched fireworks together.. i don’t think we’ve actually ever been together on the fourth of July for one reason or another..

in lieu of the actual 4th of July, here are some pictures of fireworks!

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Day 166: Early 4th of July Celebration

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today was pretty fun i always love hanging out with yg… haha it’s weird. i don’t feel older than them =\ i feel like i’m just a senior in hs when i’m with them hahaha that was a fun year in cyc

anywho, PJ and Alenna had a 4th of July bbq at their place–it was potluck! so people brought lots of side dishes and appetizers and desserts! they were yummyyyy afterwards, we just hung out downstairs until we went to go watch the fireworks at arlington race track. honestly, i’m not that big of a fireworks person, i just like the fact that people get together to do one thing: watch the fireworks. it probably sounds pretty stupid, but… i like the fact that we’re all sitting there and looking at one thing together. i dunno what about it that really gets to me, but it’s good. really bugs me when people in the group are distracted by other things–totally not saying that anyone in our group was, but yeah. just sayin’.

there are a bunch of pretty fireworks, although i don’t know the real names of them…do they even have real names?? o_O” wtjunks. haha but i like the “willow tree”, the “hand”, any shapes, the “chemistry”, the “hollywood glamour”, and… yeah, i can’t think of anymore. haha

MAGNESIUM STRIPS??? is that what burns super bright when you burn it?? like the brightness of the fireworks? haha. we did this in my chemistry class at stevenson. actually, that reminds me… one of my friends from that class actually fb chatted me a month or two ago. i was SO surprised when she chatted me i was so happy to hear from her! we had ap psych senior year together, too man, i miss stevenson..

/edit
i forgot to write this:
4th of july is always some kind of a happy day for me. ever since i could remember, my family always did stuff for 4th of july, but as i got older, i ended up spending most of them with my friends. i remember one in particular, july 4, 2006–i spent most of the day with the maloney’s they were kind enough to have me and peter kim over and hang out, eat, spend time with the family. at night, we all went to melas park to watch the fireworks there… and then afterwards, julie and i went on tilt-a-whirl (one of my favorite rides at carnivals) MULTIPLE times! that day was also kinda eh, because i actually had to go to the hospital because my eemo was in a lot of pain, so we had to admit her into the emergency room. but yeah… i don’t know why i think of that 4th of july. maybe because a lot of things were going on and i just genuinely had fun.