Entries for April, 2004

When I was little, an April Fool's joke would have been something like gleefully yelling, "Look behind you!! A spider!!" then bursting into fits of joyous laughter.

Thus, the unofficial joke day of the year became the excitory equivalent of a glass of warm milk.

Now that I'm older, I have much better ideas for jokes, and if I weren't so freakin' lazy, April 1st would be pretty fun. Nevertheless, today did have a couple good pranks.

Today, a friend had a seizure during English class. He dropped to the floor and started gurgling and choking, shaking unconrollably. The teacher freaked out, stood there petrified, about to have a heart atack, then stumbled over to the phone to call the school nurse. My friend looked up and calmly said, "I'm ok. April fools." The teacher was about to kill him. I laughed because it was funny. Ha.

Then another friend and I got to class early and posted a note on the door telling all kids to report to the library for the period. 30 kids almost all got swept into detention for being tardy. It was marvelous. Ha.

And just for the joy of being contrary, exactly at 12:00 a.m., April 2, I will sneak into my sister's room and wreak havok on her face with multiple drawing utensils.

Ha.

Written by jihwan at 10:30 PM.

2 x 0 = 0

I loved reading when I was younger - I started reading at age 3 and grew up with a book in my hand. As I got older, though, I got wrapped up into the whole gaming scene, as all boys are inevitably destined to [it's fortold in the uncanny alignment of the stars]. I lived mesmerized by the fancy graphics and sound effects of the latest games, only to be bored within a couple weeks and wanting something newer. Needless to say, my free time was not enriched with the most nuturing of pasttimes.

But due to recent circumstances [one of those grudging mother-son agreements], I was actually forced to pick up a book in my spare time. I've just finished rereading Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, and I realized something miraculous.

Instead of having flashy pixellated images burning my retinas out, I was able to create vivid scenes with my imagination. I was forced to think, rethink, and reevaluate values and ethics. I was taken to the world of Trafalmadore to the hillside banks of the Salinas River to the heart of human nature and back to my cluttered room. I met WWII veterans, mingled with California laborers of the 1930s, and saw through the eyes of Captain Nemo. I learned to effectively express my thoughts and feelings onto a computerized journal, to let my imagination loose, and to sentimentalize about corny revelations of a lost passion.

Hey there. I'm Jihwan, and I've rediscovered literature.

Written by jihwan at 02:30 AM.

5 x 0 = 0

I shall marry whoever finds a cure for allergic hives.

Written by jihwan at 10:03 PM.

6 x 0 = 0

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if time were tangible. We wouldn't have all this unnecessary abstract crap floating around in the fourth dimension. Life would be so much more easily managed.

I imagine time as being a purple glob of putty.

You're having the time of your life at a concert. You take time and stretch it out as far as your arms will go. Make it last.

You're about to go into intensive surgery. You take time, slap it onto the table, grab a butcher knife, and chop the middle part out. Then you clump the remaining chunks together, so all you have is the "Before surgery" part and the "After surgery" part. None of the pain and the blood and the cutting and the gutting.

You're on a wonderful date. You take time and stick the two ends together to make a loop. Your indescribable feelings of love [or lust] can repeat itself indefinitely.

You want to relive your past. Cut out a chunk of time and tack it onto the end of your putty.

Someone pisses you off. You take time and roll it up into a sausage.

Then you slap his face off.

Written by jihwan at 11:22 PM.

3 x 0 = 0

A very happy 15th birthday to my one and only baby sister. I love you.

Written by jihwan at 02:55 PM.

I disagree!

I'm feeling as though my future is split up into so many different roads that point to so many different destinations. Emotions conflicting with common sense, ambitions checked by practicality, faith unsettled by cognition, direction muddled by desires..

I am so lost.

Written by jihwan at 10:38 PM.

3 x 0 = 0

Fuck - n., v., adj.
v. tr.
1. To have sexual intercourse with.
2. To take advantage of, betray, or cheat; victimize.
3. Used in the imperative as a signal of angry dismissal.
n.
1. An act of sexual intercourse.
2. A partner in sexual intercourse.
3. A despised person.
4. Used as an intensive: What the fuck did you do that for?
interj.
1. Used to express extreme displeasure.

Teens these days seem to get a kick out of interjecting the colorful word in between every two words that come out of their mouths. It's so commonly used in our high schools that no one even bats an eye when some idiot gets his orgasmic jollies from overusing a word that is apparently supposed to make the speaker appear mature and adult.

"Fuck" is just a convenient substitute morons use instead of the thousands of other nouns, verbs, and adjectives available in the English language. It's filler. It's unnecessary. It's for people that can't take the microsecond of incentive nor the handful of brain cells required to describe a something with intelligence.

It's not even an offensive word anymore. All it has become is the staple product for the millions of lobotomy patients who can't seem to string together two adjectives and a noun to save their pathetic, futureless lives.

A bit of discernment and discretion for the future adults of America. Is that too much to ask?

Written by jihwan at 09:17 PM.

3 x 0 = 0

When he woke up, he groggily glanced at the green numbers on his clock.

Then he did a double take and stared at it again. 7:18.

He ran into his sister's room shrieking.

Wake up!! We're late!!

His sister cracked her eyes open and glared at him.

Stop fooling around, you idiot.

Spit flew out of his mouth as he gesticulated, jabbing his finger at the clock for emphasis.

Get up!! Can't you see we're late?!

His sister gave him a look that would've melted rock and savagely spat out:

It's 7:19. In the afternoon.








[insert mental image of Jihwan standing in his boxers looking incredibly confused, stupidly scratching his butt as he attempts to decipher what was just said to him]








After a couple minutes, it registered in his head.

The light filtering in through his window wasn't dawn. It was dusk.

He hadn't just waken up from a good night's sleep.

He'd waken from his daily nap.

Written by jihwan at 07:32 PM.

4 x 0 = 0

It's 12:30 A.M. There I am at my desk, headphones on, AP American History book in my lap, when I hear an enormous bang and then a muffled car alarm go off. I look out the window and see a ball of flame about 30 feet high. Wide eyed, I run out onto my veranda. The acrid smell of burnt rubber and plastic hits me like a tidal wave and almost knocks me backward.

After calling 911, I run out onto the street and stand there gaping at the orange fireball 40 feet away. I can feel the blistering heat and the smell becomes so strong my eyes tear up. There's a pillar of smoke and ash rising 200 feet into the air, and other people from my townhome community come running out in their robes and slippers, many of them with their own cell phones at their ears.

Within five minutes of my call, the fire department comes blaring onto the scene and tries to put out the fire. It takes them a full ten minutes to subdue the flames. I can make out the frame of a Toyota Celica, formerly new and white, presently barbequed and well-done.

It seems to me like some people stole the car and set it on fire to get rid of the evidence. Then, I assume, they stood around and toasted marshmallows and reminisced about Camp FunAndGames while singing "Over yonder."

No one around my neighborhood owns a white Celica, and even if they did, no one would have the sudden urge to blow it up, and even if they did, no one would blow it up in their own neighborhood, and even if they did, no one caught 'em.

I returned to the scene with my camera and asked one of the firemen if I could take a picture.

He told me to go home.

I guess you can't have everything in life.

Written by jihwan at 12:59 AM.

11 x 0 = 0

Contrary to some claims, I'm not a real big talker. Sure, sometimes I do it to bother certain people, but most of the time I like my peace and quiet.

Not that I'm shy or antisocial. Just that a lot of times I'd rather stare blankly at something and stew around in my own thoughts than engage in pointless conversations on pointless subjects.

Like when I'm in the car. Every Sunday on the way to and from church [downtown L.A., about 40 minutes away], I'm content just gazing out the window thinking about stuff. But my sister insists that she and I maintain constant conversational circulation. More often than not, our verbal tennis matches end up with her smashing me in the face with 130 mph serves while I pick at my wedgie [damn shorts].

Which leads to my absolute inability to keep a conversation going. After three minutes of nice witty banter, I find myself groping around for a remotely viable conversation piece [and failing]. My phone conversations are no longer than a couple minutes, because usually the other person gets tired of hearing my raspy breathing.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I met someone else like me. We would just sit there wishing we'd brought our cd players and a book.

It would be like that Pokemon episode where Ash's Metapod battles another Metapod in the Viridian Forest. You know the one. They just kind of leaned against each other and kept using the move Harden, moaning and sweating and glaring at each other with their little beady eyes [cocoons have eyes?] and developing stress-related ulcers and inwardly making notes to call their lawyers and sue the game developers for making them so damn weak.

And so damn ugly.

Finally, with two minutes left in the episode [and Ash looking around for the nearest Port-a-Potty - he'd become incontinent and had a severe case of corrosive diarrhea], the opposing Metapod kinda just fell over with a little grunt. How climatic. Stupidest Pokemon episode. EVER.

I'm not a loser. Honest.

Written by jihwan at 10:56 PM.

9 x 0 = 0