Entries for July, 2004

All I'm saying is, I hope my wife will be as Type-A and as uptight about stuff as I will not be.

Because seeing as how I don't care about my own future, my kids are gonna be lazy, unmotivated, undisciplined little gremlins that'll end up on the corner of Sunset and Vine haggling to get the best bang for their buck.

So as long as I meet and marry an overcontrolling, overbearing Nazi, then it's safe to say that our polar personalities will produce and cultivate the perfect children.

Yeah.

Written by jihwan at 09:52 PM.

1 x 0 = 0

While I'm still lingering over the future wife issue, I'd like to take a moment to reflect.

Somewhere out there, in a place unknown to me, my future wife is living her life as normally as I am. Which, come to think of it, isn't very normal at all.

Exaggerated self-evaluation aside, right now she is dealing with her own angst-ridden teenage life just like I am. She has to worry about grades, zits, her parents, her friends, and boys. She might be in Los Angeles, New York, or Korea. She might be 14, 17, or 20.

And somewhere, sometime in the future, her path and mine will meet. Maybe at college. Maybe at a cafe. Maybe even through those ever so popular dating game shows, if I get desperate enough.

It's kinda cool to visualize her strand of life and my strand reaching out of the infintismal web of human relationships and intertwining to form a single, vibrant one.

..

..

..

I really really hope that my future wife isn't thinking about this right now, too. Because if she is, then I'm fated to marry a geek with too much thinking time on her hands.

Written by jihwan at 08:28 PM.

2 x 0 = 0

I was reading a book for once. And it got me thinking. Yeah, I know. Cue the wailers and the incense and the human sacrifices.

There's something not quite real about the concept of sequential time. The paradox of time supposedly passing and of a so-called present that's constantly rolling into the future and creating more and more past behind it... given enough thought, it makes no sense.

If the present were a car, and the past is the road we've just driven over, and the future is the headlit road up ahead that we haven't yet gotten to, and time is the car's forward movement, and the precise present is the car's front bumper cutting through the fog of the future, so that it's now and then a tiny bit later it's a whole different now, etc., then it makes sense in a logical way.

But if time is really passing, how fast does it go? At what rate does the present change? Meaning, if we use time to measure motion of rate - which we do, because it's the only way you can - 75 heartbeats per minute, 186,000 miles per second, 20 miles per hour [Sark's driving speed], etc., how are you supposed to measure the rate at which time moves? One second per second?

Then it makes no sense. You can't even talk about time flowing or moving or crawling without getting stuck in a paradox.

So think for a second: what if there's really no movement at all? What if this moment that we feel is all unfolding in the one flash you call the present? What happens to this infinitely tiny split-second of the present when the car that's supposed to be constanly moving forward in time drives right into a brick wall? Then what?

I'll tell you.

Then no seat belt or air bag will stop you from being thrown out of the windshield and smashing your confused face against the hot, sharp gravel that's supposed to respresent insanity.

Written by jihwan at 09:10 PM.

2 x 0 = 0

I went to my cousins' place today, and my cousins, their friends and I went swimming. The boys were ages 7, 8, 9, and 10, and I actually had a good time fooling around with them and teaching them how to dive and doggy paddle and such while the parents watched by the poolside.

While I was sitting with the adults for a moment of rest [having 4 hyper kids hanging off me like Monkeys in a Barrel gets tiring], I noticed that they were talking about me. They talked about how I'm going off to college in a year, how time flies by, how I've grown up to become a well-rounded, well-mannered young man. They discussed how I'm good with kids, how the boys all look up to me, and how I'm going to do great things with my life.

When I hear stuff like that, albeit a bit discreetly, it makes me feel good. Who doesn't like to be praised? But knowing that other people have expectations of me and are proud of who I've become makes me really want to try harder to grow into a better person.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm doing all I'm doing - this college stuff, Korean manners and formalities, the persona I've cultivated - what it's all for. And every time I hear that someone out there notices and expects something better out of me, I realize why.

Because my life isn't entirely for my own good. It's for the adults that worked to make me a better person and the kids that watch me as they mold their own lives.

Keep watching me. I'll make you all proud.

Written by jihwan at 09:48 PM.

I disagree!

After some deliberation and sessions with my very own private college counselor [you rock, Angie!], I have narrowed my tentative college choices down to a reasonable number. It's still in the workings, and it'll probably change after some more research, but I thought that you might like to see where my interests lie.

University of Southern California
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, San Diego
University of San Francisco
Pomona College
Claremont, McKenna College
Occidental College
Loyola Marymount University
Pepperdine University
Cornell University

The applications themselves will cost my parents over a thousand bucks is my guess. But if I get accepted, then I guess it'll be worth it. If you all have any juicy little tidbits on the schools, it'd be a great help if you drop me some hints.

Written by jihwan at 09:24 PM.

4 x 0 = 0

Everyone has them. Those acquaintances that border the line between "oh-I-recognize-him" and "she's-my-friend." You've probably had a semsester of English together, and the most conversation you two have had was, "Can I borrow your eraser?" or "Why are you staring at me like that?" *ahem*

So when you pass by them in the hall or see them at the mall [wearing a shawl that you have the gall to call not worthy of wiping your ball...], you don't know whether to say "hi" or walk by and pretend like you didn't see them.

The reason is simple: there are two possible outcomes that can go awkward either way.

1. You say Hi.
The girl looks around for the loser who called her name, stares at you like she can't quite place your face in the right cubbyhole of her memory, and asks, "Do I know you?" In which case you either keep pushing the "friendly" card and reply, "Yeah, don't you remember? I sat behind you in your math class last year staring at the freckles on the back of your neck." or take the easy way out and mumble, "No, sorry, I thought you were someone else..." and shuffle off promising you'll never be social again.

2. You don't say Hi.
The girl does a double take, runs to catch up with you, and demands, "Jihwan!! Hi!! What's going on? Why don't you say Hi to me?!" You can't say that you didn't see her, because you both know you've already made eye contact. So your best bet is to be the inconsiderate jerk ["Do I know you?"], or make up some wildly bullcock story about how you have so much on your mind right now because your dog got hit by a car and you've been diagnosed with genital herpes and you didn't notice her I'm so sorry we should have tea together sometime oh you have a boyfriend no that's OK I'm not crying...

Sigh.

There's no easy way out. If only I had the uncanny ability to make a lasting impression on people so they never forget me, or had the amazing power to become invisible and had the self restraint to keep myself from sneaking into girls' locker rooms.

Written by jihwan at 09:41 AM.

9 x 0 = 0

I got a haircut today. And I got it cut extra short, as close to bald as I could without having my mom flip out. Why? While getting my hair yanked out of my scalp and having too many close shaves with the razor [yay for bad jokes!], I got to thinking.

Why do people all over the world spend so much energy, time, money, and stress on hair?

Hair is nothing but dead, keratinized, pigmented filaments. Put simply, hair is dead cells, because by definition, as soon as it grows beyond the epidermis of the scalp, the cells are dead. Now, tell me, what's the use in taking unnecessary care of something that is all con in a pro/con situation?

Hair doesn't DO anything. All it does is force people to buy shampoos, conditioners, moisturizers, keratin packs, dyes, strengtheners, and women-know-what-else. Americans alone throw away millions of dollars yearly buying something to make dead cells shine, to give dead cells "body," [whatever the hell that means], to change their dead cells' colors, and so on.

Plus, hair gets in your face, makes you waste more money on haircuts [in womens' cases, $400 for a "haircut" whose result looks exactly the same as before], turns gray, and eventually FALLS OUT.

How about we all just go bald? Then we wouldn't have people self-conscious about balding heads, people trying to cover up gray hairs with dyes, and girls being jealous of other girls' hair. It would be comfortable and economical, and we could use all the money poured into the hair industry to do something productive, like feeding the poor or buying me a new 40-Gigabyte iPod.

I mean, think about it. Why go through the trouble, the pains, the stress, the worries, the money, the time? All that CRAP for thousands of DEAD CELLS?!

As impractical as my proposal may be, it was surprisingly convincing. To me, at least. So I call to all the Captain Kirks, the Vin Diesels, the Ron Howards, the Hulk Hogans, the Billy Corgans, the John Lithgows, the Jason Alexanders, and the Homer Simpsons!!! Let's just simplify life by being the instigators of a new movement, a new trend, a new lifestyle!

...

Just as soon as I can convince my mom to let me go bald.

Written by jihwan at 07:56 PM.

5 x 0 = 0