it’s been a rough past year for my family…

so much financial complications… almost lost our business, even had to sell our house…

not trying to downgrade the weight of our circumstances, because my parents have gone through so much trouble,  but sometimes i feel like we make things worse than they seem to be, because we fail to look up

instead of looking up we fix our eyes on all the trouble and chaos around us and get filled with negative thoughts… and ultimately lose hope

two winters ago i went through depression… it was no joke…

I remember even going to WebMD.com and looking up the symptoms for depression… and when they matched my symptoms i got even more depressed by the fact that i was depressed…

i researched and found out most people define “depression” as a loss of hope

yea, i wasn’t eating right, i slept irregularly but those were just the consequences of the fact that i had lost sight of the hope that i once had in life.

the depression started around thanksgiving time and went on for about a month.

and it sounds really cliche, but what got me out of depression was Christmas.

Christmas of 2007 meant more to me than any other Christmas i had experienced in my life.

it was when i truly realized the fullness of  how much God loved me… what got me the most was the fact that he loved me SO damn much that he would leave his home, come down to earth, just so he could be with me and show me that I don’t ever have to be lonely again

and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Christmas happens to be at this time of the year

I’m pretty sure that Jesus didn’t really come to this earth on a December 25th, but whoever decided to put Christmas on that day had it right.

Jesus meets us in our loneliness.

and knowing this we can turn the page and start a fresh new year with hope.

so i just came back not too long ago from eating our Christmas dinner with my family… we were all tired so we didn’t really talk much but as i was sitting there i couldn’t help but thank god… after all the mess we’ve gone through, i was so grateful that we still had each other…

the beauty of Christmas

is that there is hope, because we are never alone

what the

Merry Christmas!

promise i wont make it long so hear me out here

not sure if i’ve ever studied as hard as i did this past week… ever..

i don’t know why i did, because even getting 100s on my exams wouldn’t have changed the outcome of my final grades because they were so mediocre

and i don’t say this often cuz my grades suck, but i think i did pretty well on my exams (you won’t hear this for another while)

like i said, i don’t think it made that much of an impact on the transcript

but this whole process kinda taught me a lot of things, in my heart (pound my chest)

call me a nerd if you want, but this time i wanna call this finishing strong.  integrity.

i say this all the time but i’ve been so apathetic these days its kinda pathetic (ha RK)

and i’ve learned in these past years or so that being apathetic cripples you… in life… spiritually…

and how could i be so forgetful? after all the things that i’ve been taught these past years

but this past week was a little different

maybe it was the marathon, maybe it was all the crap i went through my 1st year, but i know that little by little he’s been molding me whether i realize it or not

because sometimes it’s not always the end result that produces a good story

but its the process.  the gut. the grind.

and because of that i’ve never been this excited for winter break before

i mean, it’s what we’ve been waiting for all semester long, right?

EXCITED TO LIVE

apparently i was the senior animator for X-Men: the Last Stand and the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1279602/

props to Ni Johnson for finding this

in the concluding chapter of the letter to the Philippians, paul says this:

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty, I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

this passage has been floating around in my head for a while now…

i read it the other day and I was kind of amazed…

I wrote an entry a couple months ago about how we’re such fickle beings; how so often times outside things tend to dictate our moods… how one “bad thing” can “ruin” a day and so on…

and then there’ paul here.

when i read that he knows the “secret of being content in every situation”, I honestly got kind of jealous…

why can’t i be like that? I want to be free from my desires and wants…to be able to let slide the little things that don’t matter and hold on to the good

and i was thinking about it this thanksgiving break, as i got to spend some time by myself, and it all made sense.

this so called “secret” that Paul is talking about here is thanksgiving.  having a thankful heart.

sounds stupid and cliche, but hey thats just the way it is sometimes

i think its crazy how people go shopping crazy during thanksgiving…

don’t get me wrong i love black friday sales… but i think the whole idea of it shows how we are such broken people and how our wants and desires can drive us to do ridiculous things…

and i don’t think our desires are necessarily a bad thing.  its just bad when its channeled in a wrong direction

it took a lot of breaking down but i’ve come to realize the importance of having a thankful heart and taking nothing for granted..

ill end with some things that i’m thankful for in my life

second chances. mom. dad. rupert. family. friends. old friends. health. wealth. deodorant. windows 7. hoodies. good food with good people. grace. arrested development. sports. afc. snl. kcpc. gcf. brotherhood. lemon lime and fierce melon gatorade. chapstick. febreze….

couple hours late on this, but whatevs

i was so blessed while celebrating your birthdays… sounds weird but yea…

Happy birthday to two of my dear friends, John Kim and Eunice Chung…

jewnice + swords = dangerous

here’s to john, a brother, friend, roommate, baller, president, who i’ve known for 7+ years and will deal with my gayness for the rest of this year (hopefully more)

here’s to eunice, for never giving up on friendship when i may be the worst friend in the world.

here’s to friends, because they shape us and define our lives more than we will ever realize.

here’s to life; the gift of life so undeserved

may not seem so at times, but i hope you two realize how much you mean to me

happy birthday again, and here’s to many more

cheers yo

from A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, by Donald Miller

“If I were to play you a recording of a garbage truck backing up, with a jackhammer or something in the distance, that wouldn’t be music.  That would just be noise, right?  I mean you wouldn’t exactly get those noises stuck in your head and be humming them a week later.”
“Right,” I said, wondering if I’d swallowed some of the plastic wrapper around the star crunch.
“But music is different,” Steve continued.  “Music obeys form and structure.  There are scales and harmonics; there are principles a musician adheres to, in order to make music.  If he doesn’t, it’s just noise.  It’s the same with story.  If you don’t obey certain principles, the story doesn’t make sense.  Without story, experiences are just random.”
“Experiences are random,” I repeated.
“Noise,” Ben said.
“Noise,” I repeated.
“That’s brilliant, right?” I asked Ben.
“Probably,” Ben said.
“Are we still taking about the movie?” Steve asked.
“I don’t know,” Ben said after a moment of silence.

currently reading

1. Where is your cell phone? to my left.

2. Your hair? holy crap i have hair now….

3. Your mother? almost became a korean celebrity

4. Your father? loves me and loves golf

5. Your favorite food? peking duck, sushi, chipotle, korean food

6. Your dream last night? cant remember……

7. Your favorite drink? gatorade lemon lime

8. Your dream/goal? love god love man

9. What room are you in? bedroom dawg

10. Your hobby? basketball guitar all sports chillin

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? on the moon

13. Where were you last night? home

14. Something that you aren’t? not cool

15. Muffins? and milk

16. Wish list item? massage

17. Where did you grow up? korea/england

18. Last thing you did? open the window

19. What are you wearing? my marathon shorts, and a red nike T that says ALL OUT

20. Your TV? john’s tv is nice…

21. Your pets? my wilson evolution basketball.

22. Friends? love em to death

23. Your life? need goals, lack of ambition is killing me

24. Your mood? chillin

25. Missing someone? my homies, u know who u are

26. Vehicle? honda accord for the win; if you haven’t been in it you’re not my friend yet

27. Something you’re not wearing? a bra

28. Your favorite store? Charlottesville Kroger… $2.19 milk?!?!?! AWESOME

29. Your favorite color? white

30. When was the last time you laughed? couple minutes ago

31. Last time you cried? last week

32. Your best friend? i say ali

33. One place that I go to over and over? AFC

34. One person who emails me regularly? SAM LEE IN CHINA

35. Favorite place to eat? chipotle

I would like to take this time to give an opportunity for you guys to be worthless like me and do this survey.

I holler at……. chris jun, lynn, hw, eunice.. and since im missing a lot of ppl…

just do it if u see it…

blinds down. good for sleeping at night.

not sure if you guys do this too, but ever since i was little,
i always did this thing with blinds, to minimize the amount of light coming in to my room.
during the day, i would shift the blinds up rather than down, because in daytime, light comes from above.
but during the night, i would shift the blinds down, because at night lights come from under (i.e. streetlights).

does that make sense?
maybe its just me being ocd, or maybe you guys do this too and i never knew.
or maybe its just maybeline….

in lieu of my physics midterm tomorrow, i’ve decided to write about something physic-y

*i read this the other day about light entering your room from the outside:

the daylight illuminating the wall of your room actually forms a jumble of overlapping images from that which is outside the window…
so the light on your wall is basically an upside down projection of the scene outside your window (just very fuzzy)

it’s kind of like a pinhole camera.

so if you squeezed your window into a very small hole, the light in your wall will focus into an image. how cool is that?

people actually take amazing photographs like that… (go to google images and type “pinhole photography” and be blown away)

So after i read about this light from the outside coming into your room and creating an image in your wall, i couldn’t help but be a little amazed…

the thought of images and scenes entering into my space without my consent?

the thought of how rooms and houses are created to keep the outside, outside, and the inside, inside and how it doesn’t really work that way?

the outside coming in through the smallest of holes, to impose itself on us in our most protected areas?

sounds a lot like God’s love doesn’t it?

there’s absolutely nothing like discovering this relentless love…

we search in all the wrong places, just to come back to where we started to realize that what we were looking for was always there

gonna end with a quote just to confuse you guys

“what you’re looking for is what is looking”

*i was flipping through my notebook and i found this little blurb i wrote.

5/10/09

“the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge”

it’s not about being smarter than your peers,
or even just having everything figured out.
but it’s about the understanding of who God is,
and what your identity is in God.

that’s wisdom.

and i’m talking about wisdom beyond this world.

we often go through difficult times
and ask God for wisdom and discernment…

but maybe all God wants for us is to simply
give.
up.

to give up any of our understanding of things
even our so-called “wisdom” from our past experiences
and to simply get to know more of who He is…

the book of Job ends with God.
God simply shows up.  reveals himself to Job.
he doesn’t give explanations for everything that happened
but he just. shows. up.

and job understands.

it’s about time to go back…

have you been looking in all the wrong places?
you know where to go. what’s holding you back?

p.s. check out these albums:

David Crowder – Church Music
JayZ – Blueprint 3

“I am far more interested in jumping than I am in arguing about whose trampoline is better.  You rarely defend the things you love.  You enjoy them and tell others about them and invite others to enjoy them with you.” – Rob Bell