We often forget

that
we gain by giving
and we fill ourselves when we empty ourselves.

탐하는게 많아질수록 인생이 비굴해진다.

Oh the weather outside is frightful ♬but the fire is so delightful ♬

주말 사이 날씨가 제법 많이 쌀쌀해졌다.
어제는 콧등에 눈도 맞아보고.

밖이 추운데 속까지 휑하면 너무 시리다.
조그만 구멍도 금새 커져 외로워지기는 너무 쉽다.
그래서 밖이 추울수록 마음은 따뜻하게 채워야 한다는 생각이 든다.

연평 포격 사건으로 숨진 해병대 두명의 영결식을 보며 엉엉 울고 있는데
지나가시던 엄마의 뻘쭘해지는 한마디: "네가 울고 싶었나 보구나"

그리고 오늘 저녁 아직 퇴근도 못하신것 같은 승구쌤 이메일
("공부하는데 참고해~~ ^^" )그리고 통계 프로그램 정리해놓으신 파일 첨부까지.
감동해 오늘 밤 꿈은 기분 좋을것 같다며 요란 떠는건 나 아닌가.

아이스크림은 더 차갑고, 핫코코는 더 뜨거운 겨울,
남을 생각해 주는 마음도 crescendo되어 다가 올 때에는,
무조건 예쁜말, 예쁜짓 아끼지 않는거다.

It's that time again.
그치, 마리야?

Classic.

If I were living my mom's life, I'd be getting married at this exact day
...as a 24 year-old young bride, still confused but excited for her newly wed life.
Mommy Sungho says she liked my dad's serene and gentle aura when she first met him (she has a boyish name). She says she could trust that he will take care of her.


I don't know what Daddy Minkyung's story is (and I can never milk it out of his stubborn mouth) but according to his friends, they were all very surprised when my dad showed up to a gathering with my mom. "What? Minkyung's brought a girl?" (my dad has a girly name)

25 years ago, on this day my parents got married.
Out of those 25 long years, they been away from each other for too long. (흠 그건 내가 죄송)
But it's still there. They are still there, singing at a church choir together and hiking at nearby mountains every so often.

And the year after that, their beautiful daughter makes her grand entrance to this wonderful world. This girl is a 20-something-years-old but she is still a tadpole in their eyes. (매일 문자로 "아침은 먹었니?", "집에 가면 먹을껀 있니?")

And 4 years later, this thing joins the family (↓)


Since 2005, we've been one family with three different homes (not to mention having more than one home since 1999), but we know that our headquarter, the base camp, and the citadel is where 아빠 and 엄마 are.

아부지 어머니, 결혼 25주년 축하해유~♥

And because it's conveniently the day of Thanksgiving, let me just say that I am wholeheartedly thankful for my bestestestestest mommy and daddy ...and maybe my brother steppi.

학빈아, 누나 대전 내려간다. 메롱 그리고 미안 ㅠㅜ

today is the day

when I found out that my sense of optimism is quite different from that of many people in my motherland.
I hear that I am an optimistic person (and it is true that I try to see my glass always half full), but when they say the word "optimistic," I am often confused whether they are really giving me a compliment; their eyes say, "You little girl, what do you know."



Today was the day..
when I was falling asleep like the usual me after lunch
and heard all so suddenly that North Koreans are firing on 연평도. This attack made South Korea go under the "Jindo-dog#1"code, which according to Dr.Lee (who was in the ground combat unit in his younger days) is the state right before a declaration of war. At a moment like this, Koreans display an incomprehensible amount of optimism.
Ex#1: "This is not the first time where the North acted like this. And nothing really has happened this all along ♬"
Ex#2: "We're fine because we're in a hospital building. They can't touch us ♪"
Ex#3: "If we were meant to die today, we will just die ♪ " (yay)

...

Now what I think is that,
maybe, I have a different threshold for perceiving what is realistic and what is not.

That is, if I were to give a GRE-style antonym to this whole situation it would look like..
earthquake : Californians :: Kim Jong-Il's lunacy (똘끼): South Koreans

makes more sense now, right?

if a picture paints a thousand words then why can't i paint you

"If" by Bread.
This is by far the most romantic song I've heard. Lyrics and melodies like these are hard to find nowadays, no? There are some bands who write incredible songs, but even so, I don't think they quite match up to sentiment of the olden day artists. Maybe I was meant to exist in the 60's or the 70's :/ But please just listen to the guitar, pay attention to the lyrics, and feed your autumn-drenched souls...

If a picture paints a thousand words,
Then why can't I paint you?
The words will never show the you I've come to know.
If a face could launch a thousand ships,
Then where am I to go?
There's no one home but you,
You're all that's left me too.
And when my love for life is running dry,
You come and pour yourself on me.

If a man could be two places at one time,
I'd be with you.
Tomorrow and today, beside you all the way.
If the world should stop revolving spinning slowly down to die,
I'd spend the end with you.
And when the world was through,
Then one by one the stars would all go out,
Then you and I would simply fly away

:) ah

happy early christmas (nope, cant do that)

Dear Santa:
what I really would really love to have for Christmas is significant p-values
(and one Tickle Me Elmo, maybe).
Thanks! :)

Sincerely yours,
one pathetic grad student from Seoul ♥

knock knock 여보세요?

Sometimes we wonder why we need to pray.
(Doesn't God already know what we want? He knows what's in my mind, right? 다 알고 계시잖아요) When I was little, my definition of prayer was "asking for something 'good.'" Then after some years of Sunday school and a few "last night of the retreat experiences", I've come to acknowledge prayer as a conversation with God. I developed a cute habit of speaking with God frequently and even at random times of a day: standing in line for a latte or making my way from spot A to spot B in a huge UCSD campus, for example. Instead of thinking to myself, "It's a beautiful day," I modified this expression into a friendly question of "It's a beautiful day....isn't it?" Talking to God wasn't so hard. Not at all. God's been everywhere in my life, and every time I took the eucharist, his existence in me was once again reminded.

"Prayer" to a 24-year-old Kim 현 Monica is a ruler that measures how close she is standing to God. To answer the questions that I posed at the beginning of this post--of course He knows more about me and how I feel, but the significance of act of praying is that we examine my relationship with God.

Where are you? (Genesis Chapter 3)

For the first time in a very long tme, I attended mass out of my pure desire to be in His house. I've missed church a couple times within the last month (50% attendance rate. That's a Fail!) and somehow, I was able to compromise with my own conscienceness that it's okay to take a break if I feel like it :/ If there were an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other [like in cartoons] I guess I let the demon kick angel's butt. But even with that foul nonchalance, I knew from the back of my head that I won't stray away too far. I knew God was expecting me and I planned to return..soon. And today, I went to mass at Myungdong church and was absolutely delighted to be there.

The choir sang Dona nobis pacem and I discovered myself reverberating the same phrase in my head. God, grant me your peace. I have no clear reason for reciting such prayer with such direness, but at least at the moment, I felt desperate. 왜였을까?
I have yearnings that cannot be fulfiled by my work alone. To be free from selfish desires and realize that He will provide what I really need will I reach the peace of mind.

I think it's about time that I say this Bible verse again..the one that fuels the entirety of my soul: Yahweh Yireh.
"On the mountain Yahweh provides"
Lord will provide. Amen.

저 멀리 가지 않아요.
돌아오려고요 :)
picture title: 멀리 안가는 포즈 but really, 멀리 못가게 하는 짧은 다리