not sure why, but all day today, i was under the impression that it was already february. and i feel slightly perplexed that it’s still january. i feel like i gained two days in my life. though, i have to admit, i’d much rather it be february right now.

i was tired of putting numbers in my post titles

i was looking over my website stats, and i got more than double my hits from last month. and there’s still two more days. in december, i had the lowest hits i’ve had on this site for a year. and this january is the most hits i’ve had in a year.

i think the increase of traffic is connected to two things; (minor) using tags in my posts and (major) link on my sister’s website.

though the extra traffic is nice, i realize it also means there’s more random people reading this website and i feel like i have to once again censor what i have to say. i probably won’t though. i don’t really write anything offensive anyway.

sometime next month, i’m going to get my 10,000th hit on the website. what a milestone. i guess i’ll tell you this, if i can figure out who my 10,000th hit is, i’ll give them ice cream. (ie, i know when sarah or joanne look at my website, because they leave guestbook messages)

chances are i won’t know who it was though

without missing a beat, sarah has already asked me to post about something. this something is probably a thing that i’ve struggled with the most in my life. this something is forgiveness.

i’m not sure what to write about because this concept is still something i’m working on. so i’ll just write what’s on my mind

where to start…

though my sister and i are more than a few years apart, i’ve always been close to her. of course, this doesn’t mean we didn’t fight growing up. we’d scream at each other, throw markers, scar each other physically. the funny thing about it was within a few hours after the fight, we’d watch tv together as if nothing happened. we’d never say sorry. we’d just never mention what we fought about we just moved on.

that was easy forgiveness

forgiveness is not forgetting (which is what i once believed). ask a beaten wife to forget the actions of her drunken husband. ask an abused child to forget his molester.

forgiveness is not forgetting. it’s moving on.

i guess the hardest time for me to forgive comes in two times and my attitude toward one is probably directly related to the other. those two times come in regards to my mom and to my past relationships.

i was latchkey’s kid. i still am i suppose. while my grade school mates went home to their afternoon snacks and clean houses, my sister and i came home to each other. my mom believes the way to show love to us is to always be financially stable. happiness is directly related to how much money is saved in the bank. it’s a mantra that i fight with every day.

i never knew we were rich… (i’d feel guilty for every penny i asked for) till the day i went to la sierra, and my mom paid for my full tuition without batting an eye.

when i was in eighth grade, my sister graduated high school and went to puc. after school, i’d ride my bike home to an empty house. i specifically remember my aunt once remarking to me that it must be nice to come home and have no supervision. at the time, i suppose it was. but what i didn’t know then that i know now is that it started building this bitterness toward my mom that still exists today.

i love my dad

i eat pizza with him every friday. try to at least. the chinese worker at pizza hut knows him well enough to exchange pizza for money without saying a word. looking back, i realize my dad would call me up at least once a week to eat dinner. my dad works just as much as my mom.

after 8th grade, i didn’t know what a home-cooked meal was. i eat out constantly. and people ask me how i do it. what else is there to eat?

i have a hard time forgiving my mom. forgiving her for anything is near impossible because she has this ability to make me feel like it’s my fault anyway. without fail, my mom has a nose to know when i have an important paper due or a final project. and with precision, she snipes any self-esteem i have left.

i’m a failure

i think this is where past failed relationships are related. forgiveness isn’t forgetting; it’s saying it doesn’t matter.

why is it hard for me to forgive people in the past? because:
1. maybe i’m the one at fault
2. the forgiveness is required in friendships that don’t exist anymore.
i think harboring resentment/bitterness toward someone is sometimes the last emotion that i can hold to that person. and letting go of that means i’m letting go of what i have left of that person.

hate is not the opposite of love, it’s indifference. what is the opposite of hate then?

i think, a lot of times, i don’t/can’t forgive my mom because i (don’t want to)/can’t say it doesn’t matter anymore. my childhood mattered. my relationship with you mattered. i still do care. i need something to hold on to.

i’m sure there are great flaws in my belief. i used to never say i was sorry till a past relationship. now i feel i can say it without much thought.

forgiveness is a difficult difficult thing; something i need to work on; struggle with; can’t get over.

i’m going to be late to church

this post is not going to be about God even though i said it would be. i got a guestbook hit from sarah and she was somewhat disgruntled about there being no reference to the origin of my website name.

on a side note, i guess if you (the reader) want me (the writer) to write about my opinion or knowledge about anything in particular, any topic, ask me to on my guestbook. this is an open offer, though i doubt anyone but possibly sarah or joanne would take me up on it.

once upon a midnight dreary, while sarah crafted, weak and weary…

i don’t quite remember how the story goes, but it starts with joey going somewhere. and ends with sarah making him a sign for his return. halfway through the first couple of letters she realized she couldn’t fit all the letters in to finish “welcome” in one line. very un-sarah-like she decides to not start again and just finish it as is.

joey proudly displayed this sign above his bookcase of his living room.

perched, and sat, and nothing more.

and for every bible study afterwards, when my mind wandered, i pondered the strange message. i promised to someday make a website using the message and that is the origin of the website name.

i’d write more.. but it’s… 2:43 in the morning.. i’m butt tired.

i haven’t talked to grace nam (aka tink) in months. maybe even a year. no no, i think it’s been only a couple months. she’s one of those people i rarely if ever talk to online, yet i keep her on my buddy list for reasons i’m not sure. possibly obligation or remembrance of a great friendship once had.

maybe, in the back of my head, i refuse to believe the friendship has faded away and i believe that though i haven’t talked to you in awhile, you’re still only an IM away. i’ve got friends from la sierra on my buddy list that i haven’t talked to since i went to la sierra.

i have ex girlfriends, ex enemies, ex kayamm-ers. pearl has been on my buddy list since then. i think i’ve talked to her once online. i was thinking about deleting her but she just added me on myspace.

my cousin added me on myspace too. i haven’t talked to her since my grandfather’s funeral last spring. sarah would always ask me…

“what did you do for (insert holliday)?”
i had dinner with family
“o, so you saw jamie and joe, and ashley, and jeremy and jung nam”
no, i had dinner with my mom’s side
“how come you never eat with your dad’s side?”
we just don’t

lose one friend, lose all friends, lose yourself

i had dinner with my dad’s side of the family last week. i think jeremy is hilarious. he reminds me of a young jamie.

so, grace decided to break our silent splendor to tell me there’s probably something psychological about the numbers in the titles of my last couple blog posts. till she pointed it out, i didn’t realize i was writing them.

my favorite number is 27

i’m sure the numbers mean nothing.

i’ve been reading a lot lately. when i say a lot, it means, i’ve been reading (period). i have a lot of time on my hands for a little bit. i read mitch albom’s tuesdays with morrie at mammoth. really liked it. read the five people you meet in heaven over the summer and liked the style. i liked tuesdays so much i bought his new book (advertised at starbucks) for one more day and finished it in about two days.

i bought alchemist by paulo coelho the other day. haven’t started it but plan to eventually. i like inspirational/motivational/memoir type books that are short.

i bought and watched love actually. i still think the movie is great. makes me almost tear up. my favorite story is the one about the two people that speak different languages but still love each other. after watching the movie, i went to see a movie with joe, jenn, david and joanne. we were supposed to watch the good shepherd but i drove to the wrong mann theater.

why are there’s two mann theaters in glendale?

we watched freedom writers instead. it’s reminiscent of morgan freeman’s film from the 80’s (joe, it’s called lean on me). same formula. determined teacher goes to a class where no one cares. cares. changes lives.

i guess it’s the same as dead poets society

pretty generic movie. maybe it was because i just saw love actually but the movie made me want to tear up. hilary swank looks like a man. she looks like she took shots in the head when filming million dollar baby. she looks like jennifer garner.

“it must’ve been a dare”

i liked for one more day. it’s another death related book by albom about how we remember people before we die. there’s a slight twist to the end. 5 people is about what happens in heaven after you die. tuesdays is about how to live before you die. i really need to buy my own copy of this book.

if i were to rank the books, they’d go
1. tuesdays with morrie
2. for one more day
3. the five people you meet in heaven

reading the books, watching the movie, grace’s im, joanne, makes me want to write a journal to have a reference to go back to someday. if blogger crashes/goes out of business i’d lose a lot of memories. but that won’t happen. it’s run by google now i think.

i’m going to write more in the next couple weeks because i have the extra time to do so. i’m going to write whenever i have a little free time on my hands and i’m sick of dota or baseball or doing nothing. maybe it’ll increase traffic on this website, but really it’s for me.

let’s start with God.

goal reached

i weighed myself today.. the first time in a while. i weighed in at 157.0. this is slightly more than 10 pounds less than what i weighed just about a month ago. i guess dieting and exercise really does work.

now i wonder..

can i drop another 10 pounds? i haven’t been under 150 in what seems like ages. in the middle of 2000, i weighed in at an incredible 127 pounds. odd thing about it though is that even then, i felt like i was fat.

i should write my resolutions here. i always like looking back and.. seeing what i accomplished and didn’t accomplish.

-let’s start with dropping another 8 pounds