A little diversion to the side...

(A small diversion from my Study Abroad "Day Journals"...)
Time is flying by, slipping away from my fingers, fading by way too quickly.

Strange how these thoughts came up when I am sitting right now in a coffee shop (that has become my favorite since day 1 here in Cardiff) and doing some work. I am reading an article by Stuart Hall on cultural representation and race...the meaning of differences and all the theories behind them. It's quite interesting and something that interests me very much (that's why I am a communication major). Throughout his article, Hall mentions Roland Barthes a lot - which is continuously reminding me of my internship over the summer at the ICI.

I miss interning at the ICI a lot.  It was such an amazing experience of cultural analysis, discussions that would get my brain flowing like none other. I met such great people.

I'm struggling to make a decision about staying here for an entire year or leave as planned in December after just one semester abroad. Whenever I am meeting new people or hanging out with some people whom I've become very fond of in such a short amount of time, I really wish I can stay for a whole year and get the full-on experience of student life at Cardiff. This struck me especially when I was looking into the different ministries that CU runs yesterday (yeah, I'm not there in my "day journals" yet...I'll get there eventually) - there are things that I would have started this semester but would never be able to see how it ends.

I received an email from a friend back in Penn with some mischievous(?) happenings of our group of friends that got me wishing I could be there and here simultaneously. Then, I felt: "that's where I belong." They've become my home at Penn. But I've started to establish a home here too. Walking down the street and hearing, "Hi Ellie!" from a new friend (everyone calls me Ellie here...I started introducing myself as this pet name at first because Alisha and my names were so similar that people got confused, then I realized that Ellie is much easier to pronounce...now it's just gotten stuck) makes me feel like I am home here too.

Where was I going with this entry...?

Oh yeah. Time is flying by. I don't like it one bit. Life has become all about readjusting...adjusting from LA to Penn, from Penn back to LA, from LA now to Cardiff - and in the future, whenever I decide to be back, from Cardiff to Penn. It's so weird how I'm already forgetting what Penn is like as university life here has overwhelmed my so-called "college experience".

One thing remains firm though, whether I decide to stay here for a year or leave after this semester: studying abroad was the best decision I ever made in College, along with joining APO.

:)

Food for the Soul

July 7, 2010

I grabbed these three books at B&N a few days ago, and got them for less than $15!  (I can't remember the exact price).  They had their "Buy 2 BN Classics, Get 1 Free" deal going on, and I have BN membership so I was able to get the brand new copies for relatively cheap.  I am going to start Bleak House very soon and hopefully get around to the other two books, too.  It's been absolutely exhausting nowadays - the job at the learning center is getting more hectic than ever, and my internships are starting to pick up speed as well!

My trip to Westside Pavilion that resulted in my buying of these three novels resulted in a few revelations: 1) the parking in Westside Pavilion, although free, SUCKS.  That parking lot is SO confusing.  I got lost trying to look for my car even though I made sure I remembered the way I entered the mall and the parking level & number...and then while trying to get out of the parking lot, I went the wrong way in a turn (there were NO signs whatsoever) and then I had to back all the way back with all these cars waiting and...it just sucked.  2) Friends are like wine, even the ones you weren't that close to back then.  3) I need to be around people that like reading.

I met up with an old high school friend that is leaving to join the U.S. military tomorrow - we had tried to meet up, like, five times in the past three weeks but something always prevented it from happening (mostly due to my really bad memory and my recent sickness).  Although we didn't really do much during our short meeting, it was meaningful.  It's so nice to just meet up, not do anything and just catch-up with life.  Childhood friends - the people that knew me before college - have a way of touching a completely different side of me.  They know me in such a different level.  I just can't explain it.  There's less pretense, more realness.

In my little trip to BN with him, we enjoyed short conversations and shared book recommendations.  We discovered that we both adored Les Miserables and enjoyed Dickens.  We talked about Orwell, Voltaire, books that made us think, book that we thought were lacking.  I think these types of conversations feed my soul.  I need more of that in my life.

Friends are like wine

I had forgotten how wonderful you are and how time and time after you've proven yourself to be so important in my life.

You ALWAYS know the right thing to say at the exact moment.  We've grown to know each other so well that with one look, you know when something's up.

You know me inside out.  And we've bickered and even stopped talking once.

But now we've matured and so has our friendship.

I used to always wonder what I meant in your life - since I tend to be a very expressive person and you completely opposite of me, I always doubted whether you cared, whether there was something more than just convenience between us.

Time and time over, you are there when I need you the most.  And you totally have the ability to make me soft when I feel at my worst.

And above all, you remember.  You remember the struggles that I went through.  You remember the little details.  You, you, you.

I am so blessed to have you in my life.

Cry

Hello, blog. It's been a while.

I have wanted to write here for so long, but it's been...too difficult to convey my emotions of the past few weeks. But here I am now...although I am not exactly sure what this post is going to be about at all.

You were all by yourself staring up at a dark grey sky
I was changed
In places no one will find all your feelings so deep inside
It was there I realized that forever was in your eyes
The moment I saw you cry...

I wanted to hold you
I wanted to make it go away
I wanted to know you
I wanted to make your everything alright

This is literally the corniest song EVER. But it seemed fitting for some odd reason, a nice complement to my emotions right now.

Even though this is super middle school, so much changed within me after that one moment.

And it's been bothering me since....

Thinking back...

In the onset of Easter having been today (technically yesterday), I have been thinking lately a lot of how grateful I am for all that God has provided for me this semester.

Since I have such a short-term memory and I will forget so many things if I do not write it down, here I go, with a random list of things I am so blessed with.

• Being at Penn, as much as I used to hate it. It has granted me so many opportunities previously unheard of in my life.
  
• The "group" that has developed in my life that greatly represents the role Acadeca used to serve in high school.
• The very fact that I was able to walk into a church and celebrate Easter freely.
• Midnight walks with friends.
• Spontaneous moments in the middle of the night (smoothies, anyone? Pumpkins?)
• Texts in the middle of the day/night that make me laugh. like crazy.
• Late-night chats with various. :)
• ^Having someone that yells at me for having friends over late ("Gosh I feel like your dad or something") =)
  
• Sharing music. And lots of laughter.
• Being able to organize events like the Big/Little Tie-Dye. Such a blessing to have such an opportunity.
• Being able to write colorful e-mails to send to the APO listserv ;)
• Being able to double major in completely different fields.
• Having people around the clock to talk to, to study with.
• Coffee breaks <3 with lovelies.
• APO Fambam, because they changed literally everything this semester for me.
• Ridiculously long conversations on Facebook photos/statuses that keep me up late at night, procrastinating, but provide the smiles that are really needed sometimes.

And the list probably can go on forever. Life is really filled with the small things that make you smile :) And I really hope to strive to appreciate every single moment God provides in my life.

Thankful.

There are so many things to be thankful for, even when I'm at my worst.

I am realizing that more and more this semester - more like God is teaching me that more and more.

The past few days - the first few days since Spring Break - have been really odd for some reason. They have been characterized by various panic attacks as I obsessed over a paper and a midterm coming up on the same day; a friendly reminder that I was back at Penn, not at home where I had, for a week, pretended that responsibilities did not exist (on various levels, but academic being a huge part of it).

It's funny to think that it's only Wednesday (err, Thursday), and therefore it has been like, 3.5 days since I had come back - yet, I feel like I went through enough emotional Up's and Down's to last an entire semester.

But I think that things have changed a lot since last semester.

Namely, I found a group that resembles a lot of the high school friends I have back at home; friends I can laugh about stupid things with, stay up all night chatting with, and provide a support mechanism that is so needed in this kind of an environment.

Today, as I fluctuated between my modes, I found myself in friends' arms as much as I had on a typical day in high school.

There's nothing like the warmth that a good hug brings. And I am so, so thankful to have so many good huggers in my life.

Another point of reflection: I really, really need to learn to love people, even at their worst.

정리 - DONE

Coming into Spring Break, there were a couple of things I needed to "정리" in my life - mostly for my own mind's sake. 정리, in Korean, means to organize or figure out - it is very difficult to convey all the connotations that the Korean word has in English, but for now, this will have to do.

It seemed that as wonderful as this Spring semester of 2010 has been, a lot of things in my life were cluttered, or left undone; many things left unsaid that needed to be said, many complications that I just brushed off casually.

Well, all these things are very unlike me - I am usually the type of person that needs to see the end of things (I have a very hard time 'letting go' but once I 'let go' it's over as over can be) - and the fact that I had so many things not figured out was lurking in the back of my mind the entire semester, bothering me on those restless nights after an incredibly busy day.

So I took this week-long break to relax under the beautiful sun in the Pacific (the better coast) and contemplated. A lot.

Everything ranging from what I fail in doing in certain situations to all the unanswered calls and emails were taken care of; I also took a break from Digsby and my phone (for the most part) in order to sort uneasy feelings about friendships and relationships that had emerged in the last few weeks.

I always considered myself to be an open person, open to sharing about my emotions and what-not with friends and family. But I guess everyone has their share of secrets, and I am still largely grappling with trust issues.

I always thought it was because I could not trust people - and that was, in itself, the only issue.

But now I think that there is a bigger issue at hand - the root of this trust issue is not merely a trust issue, but a control thing.

On the surface, I am really not the control freak - and I am very far from being a perfectionist. That is, in group projects and in my own work (whether it be school work or a piano piece or baking), I am definitely not the person who needs 100% perfection to be pleased. But I guess internally, on a different level, I do have major control issues.

In my own mind, everything needs to be clear - whether it be relationships, friends, or the direction my career is going toward. I allocate certain degrees of motivation to each category that I am working on; that's where my "all-or-nothing" mentality takes its root.

Therefore, when things were left cluttered in my mind - with things going out of my control - with relationships emerging that I had not allocated certain levels of my attention and obligations that I half-heartedly engaged in, I was essentially going crazy.

In looking over all these thoughts, however, and realizing that I have this major control issue, I began to see the extent of my lack of trust in God.

Letting things be and "going with the flow" is one thing; realizing that the more I try to retain control of my life, I am actually causing it to slip away from my fingers is another.

Identifying this about myself is probably the best thing that has happened during this short one-week break. Now is the time for some extended reflections and prayer..

Twenty.

No longer a teenager.

I am not sure if aging is such a big deal anymore, since birthdays are becoming more and more meaningless. Still, I feel like this new decade in my life deserves at least a blog post, so here I am.

The birthday started out with a surprise! short party with APO exec board, which took me completely by surprise and made me feel so homey. An earlier celebration in the week felt a bit superficial, which made me question certain things...but of all things, this weekend made me love APO more (I thought it was not even possible to love it more!).

The day continued on with random friend visits and a late lunch/H-mart trip with a friend that I had not imagined to have developed such a special bond with; it's really funny how things turn out sometimes.

At the night of my birthday, I was busy preparing for the Rush Final Mixer, one of the few events that I am in charge of this semester; although it was a little bit stressful in the beginning, the event went smoothly for the most part, and APO made me feel incredibly loved throughout - although it was busy, I would not have had it any other way.

But the night was not over yet. After a brief encounter with church people, I realized that the east coast snow storm had begun; therefore, a friend and I ended up deciding to "walk in the snow" instead of studying, and we built a snowman, took pictures, made snow angels, and completely enjoyed ourselves. When we returned, we cuddled with a cup of hot chocolate and just talked.

I love honest, spiritual conversations that go on for hours. I love hearing and sharing about having a relationship with God and how faithful and good He has been to us.

The past 20 years have been filled with His grace and love. I honestly can say that I am excited for getting to know Him better as I grow in my relationship with Him.

Us.

"A friend is someone who sings your heart's song

back to you when you have forgotten the words."

- David Coppola

As corny as this might sound, after all these years, I do not know if he knows how special he is to me.

We met as puberty-stricken teenagers, during those awkward years when both of us were going through a state of confusion; now, as we are hitting the end of our adolescent years, I look back on the journey we had taken together despite the physical distance that existed between us for the majority of the time.

There was just something about him that had captured my interest since...our first few encounters. I remember the first day we had spoken - Valentine's Day, in fact - because of the odd nature of our conversation [something to do with some project we were forced to do in commemoration of V-day], and it was not long before we became close. It did not take much longer for me to develop a childish crush on him. As I grew to know him more and more, year after year, his presence grew bigger and bigger in my life until the point when we separated into our own ways, and the feelings transformed into something else (and to this point, I am not quite sure what it exactly is).

Now that I reflect back on those confusing moments, I can, with firm belief, state that the feelings were mutual, although neither of us had ever expressed it in words. There are some things in life that you just know, and I believe that this is one of them.

He was the "first" of many for me: the first true male friend I had, the subject of first love-like feelings, the first spiritual relationship I shared, the first person to introduce me to His love.

For a while, our relationship was so full of vigor and excitement, rapidly climbing the mountain of feelings - to the point where it stood on fragile grounds, and both of us had to be extremely careful lest we ruin what we had developed. After years passed however, I looked back at one point and realized that our relationship had grown into something so much bigger. In a very odd way, as we individually matured, so did our relationship with one another; now, our friendship is defined by a strange, deep serene connection that is inexpressible in words (and incomprehensible to others).

As we grew up and went through a number of significant others (on both ends), there still existed (and still today exists) some weird childish feelings(?) that prevailed (still prevails). I get a weird tingly feeling when I see him nowadays, but it is more due to the complex history we share more than any the typical ones of "love".

And as David Coppola states, he has truly become the person who can lead me to regain myself during those moments when I am so close to losing it. Just hearing his voice makes everything different - but I think our connection has reached such a level that just merely thinking about him, and all our precious memories, is enough to bring the passion back into my heart.