til eight in the mohnin'

"Phenomena as diverse as surrealism, body piercing, psychedelic drug use, sexual permissiveness, jazz, experimental dance, rave culture, tattooing, the list is endless. What do all these things have in common? They represent various styles of rejection of linear values. The society is trying to cure itself by an archaic revival, by a reversion to archaic values. So when I see people manifesting sexual ambiguity, or scarifying themselves, or showing a lot of flesh, or dancing to syncopated music, or getting loaded, or violating ordinary canons of sexual behavior, I applaud all of this; because it’s an impulse to return to what is felt by the body—what is authentic, what is archaic—and when you tease apart these archaic impulses, at the very centre of all these impulses is the desire to return to a world of magical empowerment of feeling. And at the centre of that impulse is the shaman: stoned, intoxicated on plants, speaking with the spirit helpers, dancing in the moonlight, and vivifying and invoking a world of conscious, living mystery. That’s what the world is. The world is not an unsolved problem for scientists or sociologists. The world is a living mystery: our birth, our death, our being in the moment—these are mysteries. They are doorways opening on to unimaginable vistas of self-exploration, empowerment and hope for the human enterprise. And our culture has killed that, taken it away from us, made us consumers of shoddy products and shoddier ideals. We have to get away from that; and the way to get away from it is by a return to the authentic experience of the body—and that means sexually empowering ourselves, and it means getting loaded, exploring the mind as a tool for personal and social transformation."

exactly what we were talking about until the sun peaked across the horizon...

YGTLC 2012

january 2012, golden gate bridge, san francisco

i was in san francisco, california this past weekend for the annual technical and leadership conference, YGTLC hosted by KSEA. i had the opportunity to meet amazing speakers, young professionals, graduate students, medical students, and other undergrads from all over the nation. i felt so inspired by the loads of intelligent, driven, successful, passionate, and ambitious korean-american people i met. i listened to inspirational talks from renown physicists and biologists, one of the first 200 employees of google, a computer scientist who works at disney, the department head at youtube, etc. i met a famous robot scientist, a former olympic swimmer, leaders in technology and research, successful businessmen and businesswomen, a person who has their own talk show, intelligence government workers, and so much more. not only did i have a lot of fun at the workshops, learned about how to succeed, listened to technical posters and presentations, toured a wonderful and extremely beautiful city, and partied with the most well-rounded people i know, i learned so much. the most important thing i took away from this conference was motivation. last semester, i had a really difficult time focusing on my schoolwork. i was emotionally and physically drained after returning from an amazing summer in europe. i really wanted to just quit school and travel. i had goals but i didn't know how to even start to work toward them. this conference made me realize the great potential i have. next to these people at ygtlc, i honestly felt insignificant and felt that i had done nothing with my life so far. with that, i will be working extra hard this semester. no more distractions!

first time at in-n-out!

golden gate bridge with the atlanta girls

hehe, kisha is such a cutie

 hotel window

  some of our new friends from virginia

 the city from lombard street  

 riding to downtown on the BART

street food at fisherman's wharf

 golden gate bridge at sunset

the cutest teddy bears! (i took a business card from the 

lady who makes these so i can buy one later, keke)

 kisha and i got handmade rings made by a chinese 할아버지

went to the famous hog island oyster co. with donna & kisha

 musee mecanique, a vintage arcade (so cool!)

 a night time trolley ride to union square

"But somewhere along the line, you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you're no good. And when things got hard, you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth."

-Rocky Balboa

kisha, me, and hara, our roommate from london

 our new friends :)

part II: booky wook 2

this is part two of my winter break book series! i had read a short excerpt from this book online once and thought it'd be an interesting read. it was quite difficult to read because i didn't understand a lot of the colloquial British language that he used. i only understood some of it because i watch the shows, misfits and skins, haha. anyway, russell brand's autobiography was mostly blabber, but there are many parts of the book that are extremely beautifully written. here are some of the quotations that i liked:

"Eventually there is no more universe between our lips and so we kiss."

"You don't wanna take life too seriously. If you don't laugh you'll fuckin' cry."

"I still have an unsophisticated notion that women are ministers of redemption, that one day in the arms of a perfumed saviour I'll be rendered complete."

"Good kissing and good sex is communication beyond language. I love language, I like sexual communication with beautiful women and I don't think it's invalid. I don't think it's any lesser and I don't know how it's been tainted by morality and adjusted to be somehow lower. I know it's animal and it's primal, but there's certainly an argument that it's a purer form of communication, that there's less duplicity. I don't try and mislead someone with my sexual commiunication. I purely communicated, by holding on to them, by dancing my way through them, by kissing them and adoring them."

"Privacy and sanity are not commodities to be traded lightly."

"The gravity of strife and mayhem had pulled me once more into its grim sphere. Perhaps I deserved it."

"God is in the mountains. Impassive, immovable, jagged giants, separating the celestial from the terrestrial with eternal diagonal certainty. As if silently monitoring the beating heart of the creator from the universe's perfect birth. Stood in the thin air and the awe, one inhales God, involuntarily acknowledging that we are but fragments of a whole, a higher thing. The mountains remind me of my place, a servant of truth and wonder. Yes, God is in the mountains."

"I became friends once with this swami who looked at me with timeless eyes, a man uncluttered by hypocrisy, who knew that life had no meaning but to be beautiful and lived, with each breath, that ethos."

"There's never a point, though, of reclining in a bath and thinking, "I've done it"-it always feels ongoing, it feels constant, because whenever those achievements are being made you're thinking about whatever you've got to do next."

"That's what I always feel when I'm in America, that I'm in a big place that's humming with difference, and being held together and pulled apart with the exact same intensity, so that it's constantly taut and vibrant, buoyant with its own suppressed explosion of diversity."

"I struggle in these situations not to let my madness govern me, and to let the positive aspects of my character define my life."

"These are the moments where one feels proximity to truth, where the supernatural becomes tangible."

"I get this gurgling discontent in my belly, a sense that everything is pointless and that nothing, nobody is worthwhile and that maybe it'd be better to slip off under a blanket or a drug and never face the light again. I think it's fear, dread, terrible knowledge. It can come at any time."

"I want love not just physical but spiritual."

"She was cruelly beautiful."

"A moment where you grope for your place in the world, aware that there's something you must do, some change, some obligation."

"We laughed by way of medicine. Comedy served its most beautiful function of alchemically transforming leaden pain into glistening laughter...but my head was not a nice place to be when the laugher stopped."

"Each individual, in their way flawed and hopeless, but unified perfect in their chaos."

"Fame, money, and glamour aren't the answer. You can't find spiritual solutions in a material world."

"The closer I got to the summit of this mountain of indulgence, the more the climb seemed pointless."

"I see the beauty in people, I want to connect with it and hold on to it."

"The next night we went on our first date and she was so funny and pretty but more importantly she emits some gentle power that makes me want to be good....From the first date I changed. No more women. Well, actually, thousands of women. I wake up to a different one each day."

----------------------------

phew, that was extremely tiring to type all that out. sorry, it's so long. there's still a lot of quotations that i like but missed. if you're curious enough, go out and buy the book!

part I: the perks of being a wallflower

rediscovering my love for reading this winter break! i want to share some of my favorite quotations from each book but it'll turn out to be an extensive and therefore boring post so i shall do it in parts. one of the first books i've read this winter break was The Perks of Being a Wallflower: this has been on my to-read list for a couple of years now, haha. i finally took the initiative to read it. here are some of my favorite quotations:

"Not everyone has a sob story, Charlie. And even if they do, it's no excuse." -Charlie's sister

"And in that moment, I swear we were infinite." -Charlie

"I am very interested and fascinated by how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other." -Charlie

"It's kind of like when you look at yourself in the mirror and you say your name. And it gets to the point where none of it seems real. Well, sometimes, I can do that, but I don't need an hour in front of a mirror. It happens very fast, and things start to slip away. And I just open my eyes, and I see nothing." -Charlie

"It was vast and open and thinly quiet, and I felt so small." -Charlie

"This all feels very familiar. But it's not mine to be familiar about." -Charlie

"People who try to control situations all the time are afraid that if they don't, nothing will work out the way they want." -Charlie's sister

"Because things change. And friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody." -Charlie

"So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them." -Charlie

how great i am

"We are what we repeatedly do. 

Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." 

-Aristotle

i watch this video, whenever i need some motivation. my last final for this semester is in T minus 7 hours. let's do this! good luck everyone!

thanksgiving 2011

"as we express gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."
-jfk


happy thanksgiving y'all~
may you be well-fed and grateful for everything.
God bless!

things fall apart

krog street tunnel, november 12, 2011

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 

the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, 

and everywhere the ceremony of innocence 

is drowned; the best lack all conviction, 

while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

-The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats

midnight in paris

“Nostalgia is denial-denial of the painful present...the name for this denial is Golden Age Thinking, the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one's living in. It's a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present.”

“All men fear death. It's a natural fear that consumes us all. We fear death because we feel that we haven't loved well enough or loved at all, which ultimately are one and the same. However, when you make love with a truly great woman, one that deserves the utmost respect in this world and one that makes you feel truly powerful, that fear of death completely disappears. Because when you are sharing your body and heart with a great woman the world fades away. You two are the only ones in the entire universe. You conquer what most lesser men have never conquered before, you have conquered a great woman's heart-the most vulnerable thing she can offer to another. Death no longer lingers in the mind. Fear no longer clouds your heart. Only passion for living, and for loving, become your sole reality. This is no easy task, for it takes insurmountable courage. But remember this, for that moment when you are making love with a woman of true greatness... you will feel immortal.”

"We all fear death and question our place in the universe. The artist's job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence."

carl rogers' model of personality

"...in modern society even the best adjusted among us inevitably harbor certain conditions
of worth. Conditions of worth result in incongruence between self and organism. Incongruence
means that our personalities are inconsistent with our innate dispositions: 

We're not our true selves."

-Psychology, From Inquiry to Understanding

sucker punch

"if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."

-mysterious mission man in sucker punch

manifesto

"We regard men as infinitely precious 

and possessed of unfulfilled capacities 

for reason, freedom, and love."

-an excerpt from the Port Huron Statement

self-actualized

"According to Maslow (1970), self-actualized people tend to be creative, spontaneous, and accepting of themselves and others. They're self-confident but not self-centered. They focus on real-world and intellectual problems and have a few deep friendships rather than many superficial ones. Self-actualized individuals typically crave privacy and can come off as introverted, aloof, or even difficult to deal with because they've outgrown the need to be popular. As a consequence, they're not afraid to "rock the boat" when necessary or express unpopular opinions. They're also prone to peak experiences-transcendent moments of intense excitement and tranquility marked by a profound sense of connection to the world."

-Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding

the good life

"Living high, living good, living 

long. Take a minute, bust a 
prayer, and you're good to go."

-MC Hammer

truth.

"in those dark times of your life when 

God is all you have, you realize that 

God is all you need."

hey God, thanks for being there.

sincerely, me.

l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle

the past few days have been a miserable attempt to stay warm in a house with an erratic heater. this morning, my mom and i were making some mango salsa and looking out the window at the seemingly (in our Georgian ignorance) greatly accumulated pile of snow. she sighed in contentment and turned to me, "aren't you so thankful that we have a house to keep out of the cold in?" here i am bundled up and cursing the broken water heater when i have shelter and food right in front of me. i have family and friends who love me, the opportunity to study at an educational institute, the freedom to devote myself to a belief in any divinity that i choose. Dante once said that God is not merely a blinding vision of glorious light, but that He is, most of all, l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle, the love that moves the sun and the other stars. mmm, this feeling of being loved by the almighty God of the universe is one that transcends all. what more do i need? yet, we still toy around with this insecurity about whether we have earned our happiness. when in reality, it was given freely to us. i want to be able to enjoy and be grateful for everything in my life.

"human discontentment is a simple case of mistaken identity. we're miserable 

because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws 

and resentments and mortality. we wrongly believe that our limited little egos 

constitute our whole entire nature. we have failed to recognize our deeper divine 

character. we don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a 

supreme Self who is eternally at peace. That supreme Self is our true identity, 

universal and divine. before you realize this truth, you will always be in despair."

-elizabeth gilbert, eat pray love

doubts

as i sit here writing an essay about why i want to go to france this upcoming summer, i can't stop to wonder what my real reasons to go are. is it because i want an escape from this monochromatic scene? is it because i'm so tired of trying so hard? is it because i have doubts? doubts, doubts, doubts. why do i have to deal with this? i'm so sick and tired of trying to please everyone. i am detached from everyone, everything, everywhere. here i am gasping for air and screaming for help. i'm not even asking for a savior. all i want is a companion. but even those, i have none.

"A line from my diary: 'We are sealed in our 

own little melancholy atmospheres, like 

planets, and revolving around the sun, 

our common but distant desire.' "

-Jack Kerouac to Allen Ginsberg, August 1945

"I myself am made entirely of flaws, 

stitched together with good intentions." 

Augusten Burroughs, Magical Thinking

"Memories are like photo albums..."

"...You fill it with pictures and label it as a section or event. 'Summer of 2010' or something. Flip through it and then put it away on a shelf and let it collect dust as time goes by and you create more photo albums to keep it company. But once in awhile, you go back through it. And as you slowly turn the pages and see the photos from the past you feel something. You feel nostalgic emotion. Happiness, sadness, anger, regret, etc. Emotions that you felt at the time of the picture. Sometimes it takes an event to become a memory for you to fully realize how wonderful it really was. A bad event can turn into a funny memory. An everyday regular hangout with friend can end up being a memory full of happiness and thanks. But with each photo, you, for a split second, a split moment, relive your memory. Relive what made you who you are today. Memories are precious things. They keep us going. When we're down, we think of all the good times we have and all the good things we're blessed with. Like friends, family, random occurrences that make your day. And you get back up and continue on the path called life. Treasure your memories and look back on them once in awhile. Dust off the photo album and flip through the pages. Go through the pictures and remember the good times and the bad. But those memories make you, you." 

                                                           -Mingie Song

Parish and Yoforia for Jina's 21st :)

sparrow

what am i doing with my life? i frequently ask myself this question. i want to go out and explore. try anything and everything. i like georgia, but it confines me. i want to break out. there's so much more out there. so many opportunities. circumstances bind me. people bind me. financial burdens bind me. freedom, i want to taste it. what to do. what to do. goodness, i disappoint myself a lot.

"Something, someone, some spirit was pursuing 

all of us across the desert of life and was 

bound to catch us before we reached heaven." 

Jack Kerouac, On the Road

we're all mad here

i watched alice in wonderland recently. yeah yeah, i know i'm late. but i really enjoyed it very much. probably one of my favorites right now even though the plot was typical, it rushed way too quickly, and character development was a bit generalized and shallow. also, they could have put more time into the graphics. it seems like they focused so much on the details of each individual scene and character that they forgot about the bigger picture. despite all of these down sides, the cast was amazing! i loved the mad hatter and the red queen. such character! the white queen was slightly annoying and a bit overplayed, and alice could have been better. but one thing i loved about alice is how she matures throughout her journey. there is so much symbolism in every scene. i also love the quotations they used. some of my favorites...

"Who's to say what is proper? What if it was agreed that "proper" was wearing a codfish on your head? Would you wear it? To me, a corset is like a codfish."

"I'm Alice." "We shall see." "What do you mean by that? I ought to know who I am."

"You're not the same as you were before. You were much more muchier. You've lost your muchness. In there, something's missing."

"Curiouser and curiouser."

 "From the moment I fell down the rabbit hole, I've been told what I must do and who I must be." "If you diverge from the path..." "I make my own path."

"Have I gone mad?" "I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are."