lov3cat

dear old friends, love from sugar

omg hiiiiiii! xanga! it’s 2012 (dun dun dun) and i’m writing my first entry in forever. It always feels good to be on Xanga. One-line tweets and status updates and check-ins (still don’t get these) don’t cut it like Xanga updates used to. But what happened to the Borders button on Xanga?! I had anxiety when I realized they got rid of this option. Look at all my nice customized-color borders around all my previous entries – i liked that neat and tidy closed-in format, but … it’s gone! 😦 Or am i just blind and can’t find it? So i made do with what i could and put in horizontal rulers…which you can’t even see because they’re white…. fail 😦

Anyway, since there’s years of updating to do in one entry, I will just summarize by saying that I am still happy sugar, perhaps even happier sugar – now that I’m all mature and wise and stuff.. ;D I am 30 after all! (omg…) I entered a new decade last December and am still struggling to take in the fact that iiiiii am 30. what rubbish! But I think i’ve come to terms with it now, and i actually feel like i’m at a good place in my life. I remember all the 30 yr old ajummas used to tell me that when I was in my early 20s – that life gets better in the third decade. I was in the height of my emo and flighty and dreamy days and couldn’t imagine being mature and stable and…thirty…. but guess WUT i’m one of those ajummas now!! wooo circle of life…hahah

But the last few years have been interesting and really good for me. I did ten years of growing up in three, and although I feel a little bit sad at the wacky sides of me that have died upon maturation, I know who I am and I know how to handle life better. I feel better prepared and way more hopeful for the future than I did five years ago. Like i KNOW everything’s going to be alright, even when things hit rock bottom…because I’m taken care of. God has been consistently good and faithful throughout everything and He will continue to be. ^_^

I really miss my borders. I’m OCD about random stuff like that and it bothers me that this entry will go up looking different from the rest but……so be it. I hope to update more often even though almost NOBODY does this thing anymore….and i hope i hope hope to see some of my dear old blog friends update as well 😀 I miss all of you. viva la xanga!

checking in

Well hello! ^.^

Looking back on my last few entries, dated back a year or so, I was doing what I’m doing now, but halfheartedly – i ended up not even submitting one application last cycle! Ugh!! I want to kick my own procrastinating ass! >.<

Well, to be fair, I did submit one last minute this July. I got in, but mulled over it for a week and decided i will regret not trying for others. So here I am, back to the same spot I was last year. But this year I am early and almost done with all my apps 🙂 Finally……..is all I can say.

It’s been a while, Xanga, and I’ve been through a lot in the past year. It’s been a great year, mostly, but a year of much introspection and soul-searching of the quarter-life crisis variety. Too much is happening, it feels like, all around me – and I’m lagging behind!

But then again, everyone’s timeline is different and their own… no set “time” to do anything, really…

I’m all grown up and still being harrassed by my parents to do things because I’m supposed to be doing them at my age. I suppose most typical Korean parents do this, but it’s really been wearing down on me lately. I feel like I’m doing fine and I’ve got a whole lifetime to accomplish the things I want to do, and a whole plan of my own by which to do them. I love them, but I’m way toooo liberal for us to see eye to eye on most things. Probably a direct consequence of my completely conservative upbringing! :]

I’m still in with the city. It’s shown me lots of its uglier sides and yet still never fails to charm me. I think it’s the fact that it still doesn’t feel like the “real” world. The city is its own little glass bubble, albeit dirty and rough, but it is still an escape from routine and monotony- a place to be alone, unknown and free to grow and flourish as I please.

I’m not sure why I felt like writing on here today – I’m still having a hard time putting thoughts into words, but I’d like very much to see how all of you are doing. =)

Wow..this just made me really sad.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/14/nebraska.safe.haven/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

holy water and zombie films

I am an officially born again chick!

I got baptized yesterday at my sweet little church (less than 50 members) and I was v. nervous and excited to finally be getting baptized after all this time. They gave us a velvety blue plaque and flowers and I felt as close as i ever will to miss america with everyone cheesing up at me and cameras flashing and the piano playing dramatically in the background. 🙂 It was great.

My pastor told me that baptism is visual confirmation of our salvation, and that it signifies death of the old me and birth of the new me (rising out of the water, although in my case it was just a few fingers dipped into a bowl and placed on my head.) Made sense. I’d always wanted to be baptized but in my old church, which was gargantuan, they made you do months of intense studying and quizzes and such and I was in my wayward-child mode back then and usually skipped my bible studies to go do something less valuable with my time. So I never made it. And I’ve been feeling guilty and damned since, but I realized that I’ve been saved all along but never had “proof” until now. And it feels so good to finally officially have joined the Big, Happy fam. Amen! :]

It’s good that this happened now, and that I’ve been keeping up with church this time, because now’s a time I really need it. Everything’s going fine and I’m really a very blessed gal, but I feel myself sliding into the pessimistic side and I don’t like it. I’ve adopted this annoying cynical attitude that pops out like a reflex whenever anything bad happens. Like whenever I watch a movie and someone has an affair, it’s like DUH, of course that was going to happen. It’s the sig other’s fault for being such a loser with no money and a nagging voice. And I don’t know when I got this way because I’m in a happy functional relationship right now plus I was always the fairy tale fanatic and believed that people are inherently good and morally strong and would do the right thing when it came down to it. But maybe that’s what happened — all those dang stories made me too much of an idealist. And now I’m opening my eyes to the fact that the world doesn’t always work like that. That people get hurt and have accidents and lose their loved people. And now I’m scurred of all the bad things that can happen. And I dont’ like taking risks no mo. And I always expect the worst. Boo! The old me laughed in the face of danger. This new me sucks.

Anyway, I think it’s just a passing phase and my newly debbie downerism will disappear on its own. I hope I hope. Maybe this is my quarter life crisis! If so, it’s not all that bad~ I can deal. There’s still so much life to live (I almost wrote get through..ha! see?) and I don’t have time to be all wimpy right now…. the good stuff is probably yet to come! And I have to prepare myself. You know, like all those armaggedon films that come out lately with the zombies on crack and angry aliens and weird things trying to use up all our resources that are already being destroyed by our greedy governmental powers not to mention global warming. So I’m gonna go sulk on my sofa now and watch some more psyche-damaging dvds. :] til next time, friends…

revelation

I AM SUCH A GOSH DARN GIRL it’s so weird.

edit (9/12/07):

Sorry for stating the obvious..that was really just excess brain waste. I actually did have somewhat of an entry posted here, but I deleted it on a whim, because it was annoying how much of a point it did not have. No news is good news, as they say… and I didn’t say much because my life is just placid at the moment…no drama whatsoevz. I feel like I’m becoming a semi-functioning and conventional human being, and it scares the heck out of me.

An excerpt from a book I am reading now (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) :

‘Do you always think this much, Charlie?’

‘Is that bad?’

‘Not necessarily. It’s just that sometimes people use thought to not participate in life.’

That passage hit close to home. I almost felt a little ashamed after reading it, actually, because that is essentially what I do. My head is always so jammed with opinions and stories and ideas and mental monologues that it feels like I do a lot of things. But really, I’m doing nothing but thinking. When it comes to social situations, I am utterly helpless. When I do go out, I prefer large, monster crowded dark places and will almost never attend smaller, intimate parties unless I am comfortable with a good number of people in attendance. I enjoy doing things by myself (and maybe my cat) immensely, but when I go out in public, I always feel a little bit awkward, unnatural…as if I’m playing the part of myself. The only time I don’t feel like this is when I am just another anonymous face in a huge sea of people (hence, my affinity towards big, bustling cities) or with my family and a select few of my best friends. At other times, I feel like I morph into whatever persona it is I usually adopt around the person or in the situation and act accordingly. But none of this helps me really participate in all the lovely social things that go on every day, especially in this city of all cities ! I observe and observe and observe …. but I don’t quite have the guts to go out there and do things with people. I blame it on fatigue or work most of the time, but really, it’s just the thought of dreadful awkward convos and stupid almost-witty-but-not-quite repartees that keeps me from crawling out of my comfort zones. This could very well lead others to believe I’m snobbish and stuck up, but it’s more likely that I feel inferior and intimidated when confronted with their smooth small-talk skills, quick jokes, easy smiles and comfortable laughter, and I wonder all the time….what it would be like to possess true social grace.

I guess I won’t know unless I change into a different person altogether…one that doesn’t knock over her drinks during lunches with important, sharply dressed people, one that isn’t always the last to know that some unidentifiable chalky substance has thoroughly smudged itself into the seat of her jeans… one that doesn’t always hit her head while getting into the car of her impossibly cute date, who kindly pretends not to notice as he holds the door open for her like a gentleman.

gotta say this much, though. I’m thankful that God has blessed me with a forgetful personality. Usually after my temperature drops back down to normal and my face goes back to its normal shade of pale, I’m as good as new and blithely ready for my next misadventure.

Til the next time we meet. Au revoir ~

http://www.sermonindex.net/images/thechurchofamerica.pdf

“America has sinned against the greatest light. Other nations are just as sinful, but none are as flooded with gospel light as ours.”

In today’s society, anyone whose actions point to the extremes are automatically deemed overzealous and melodramatic and slightly off-kilter. Especially when it comes to religion. Just yesterday I saw a man on a megaphone on a muggy 32nd street, preaching to the indifferent crowds about the love of Jesus, donning his polyester red shorts and his solitary amplifier, and I have to admit even I chuckled. From a societal standpoint he looked a little ridiculous. But a deeper part of me really respected him for his faithfulness, his courage, and most of all, his bold actions. The hardest part is often making yourself go out there and witness to the world. Especially a world as sneering and cold as ours is, now. God has been labeled many things He is most definitely not, and He’s now almost just a notion, an afterthought, a “nice” idea, a pathway for people to comfort themselves into believing that there’s actual meaning to life. He’s not just a fleeting fig of people’s imagination! HE is the true superstar, number one celebrity, ALL powerful creator of the world and universe and everything in it… watching all of us in our real life pathetic reality shows, in our everyday existence, knowing how many hairs are on our thick heads!!! God’s not dead, but a lot of living people are.

Read the PDF linked above. Keep in mind that Christianity has been around since the days of Jesus Christ, and before Christ, there were the Israelites, God’s chosen people. Our society, snickering, sarcastic, blase… this isn’t the way the world used to be. People were more passionate about God. People lived and breathed FOR God. Now, anyone who screams out that the world is coming to an end, that we’re all headed for death and destruction and penance for what we’ve done is a lunatic. Once upon a time, everyone acknowledged the end of the world as an absolute truth. Now, peoples’ ears and eyes are closed. Nobody wants to hear it.

I’m a hypocrite, I’ll admit it. I’ve fallen deeply into the ways of the world and it’s hard to keep my head clear of all the useless crap surrounding me. Greed, pride, selfishness, indifference, bitchiness, a hardened heart, a filthy mouth, of all of these things I’m totally guilty. But I pray everyday for God to change me, purify me, use me….cuz He needs every single person He can get to speak out. People who speak God’s Word are not crazy. They are informing us, the world, of what is sure to come. Everything that the Bible has preached will happen has happened, in sequential order. The big stuff just ain’t come yet.

I’m used to people calling me a harbinger of death and darkness or whatever so I don’t care if I sound “crazy”. But I believe it — always have and always will.

America, I’m sorry to say, and the world…will one day reap what she’s sowed. What we have sowed.

Pray, people.

For a change of heart. For redemption. For forgiveness of what we’ve done, for you and me and the strength we’re gonna need to survive whatever comes next. We need Him more today than yesterday, and tomorrow’s coming real fast.

someone like me

Ok, I guess I should update, and I know this is very random, but guess what, I have a boyfriend since last Friday and I like him and he’s a little weird in a good way and he’s cute and he’s a fob and he and I love the same music and my friends love him and he drives me to church every Sunday. And it’s quite a strange situation for me who has only been on sporadic dates with strange men for the last several years, and the last time I called someone my boyfriend he was thousands of miles away in the opposite time zone in what would turn out to be a dysfunctional long-distance relationship that lasts off and on for three years and ends without a goodbye (yep, my ex-apple).

Anyway, so as a lot of you know I told everyone I was a freeflying solo gal for life and I’d live alone with my cats until I die and maybe have an occasional balding boyfriend with a potbelly and two grown kids, but for the first time in my life I’ve met someone who doesn’t make me fret about the future and instead lets me appreciate this moment, right now, and just revel in it. I was disillusioned to the point where I almost knew I wasn’t gonna meet anyone who made me feel special and I resigned myself to that fact, letting my heart harden a little more each day. Now I don’t wanna sound all gross and gushy cuz that is SO NOT ME but u know what? I think God brought him to me to tell me “sugar, u are becoming negative and jaded and you need to realize that I am watching you and know exactly what you need and want, and if you just trust me I’ll provide it to you. BAM!!” and my smily sweet bf pops into my life and makes me realize that I can actually really be happy with someone again without having to try to like him, and that I can let go of the ugly past and see that it was a blessing in disguise, and that sometimes you just need to enjoy what you had and what you got right now and thank the BIG MAN for it cuz he’s always, always thinking of us, always.

My girlfriends are a little shocked by this turn of events and my sister thinks it’s crazy that I haven’t found a reason to stop seeing him yet and it’s been a month! And the fact that I actually made it official with him…she was like wth! My friends keep saying “your BOYFRIEND” and giggling afterward cuz they think it sounds funny. So anyway, my friends, if I can meet someone who makes me all fluttery and happy and crap again, this is great news for everyone — there is always hope. 😀 and yeah…don’t forget to congratulate me – it ain’t everyday I’m uncharacteristically officially unsingle. 🙂 Tootles~

heartsick

Virginia Tech – my sister is currently a student there, a senior with one month to go and what a way for her to remember her last year of college. And all her fellow students at Tech…so many lives lost and affected. And my alumni friends…imagine how they must feel. The families of the deceased….my heart hurts for them. The shooter’s parents…. unimaginable what they must be going through now. The shooter was a Korean kid who came from Centreville, 10 minutes away from my Virginia home. He was an English major, a disturbed kid who wrote horrifying plays that left his fellow students wondering if he was all there. And now he and 32 others are dead. I don’t really know what he must have been going thru or what can propel someone to hurt so many people. Whatever the motivation or intent, whatever… in the end it was all just a senseless act of a hugely disturbed soul. To think, just the day before I was sitting at home, watching the rain pour down outside and feeling lonely and sorry for myself, stuck in my unprogressive mid-20s. Needless to say I’ve gotten over that and am feeling the enormity of my blessings. Please pray for the lives lost, and the people they left behind.

every day new face

France has opened its UFO files to the public! – the first country to do so. About 25% of its cases are fully unexplainable, despite credible witnesses and evidence! oooo~ this is my kinda story. *cue theme from X-files!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070322/ts_afp/sciencespaceufo_070322143210

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2007-03-23-ufo-archive_N.htm

I realized I’ve got like seven different alter egos. I’m sure everyone has at least a couple, relative to their surroundings and situations. Mine are all very distinct and different, and it’s no wonder I confuse myself all the time…I can only imagine how others feel. There’s everyday sugar, who is me now. When I’m in everyday sugar mode, I’m occasionally hyper and occasionally reserved and usually carefree and a bit spacey at times, but fairly articulate, I’m told, and generally quite friendly. Then there’s working sugar, who’s brisk and busy and exudes an air of confidence even if she’s secretly not understanding a word her superiors say, and who talks using big corporate terms and cliches. Then we have party sugar, who gets lala~lollipop ditzy and laughs a lot and makes friends or enemies with complete strangers by saying inappropriate things (all this even without the help of alcohol). Next comes fobby sugar, who is fobbier than most fobs who immigrate to the United States, enjoys writing mushy love letters to her ja gies, loves lacy pearly things and recites Korean poetry in her head and cries herself to sleep while thinking of her beloved, who for some reason is always far away and unattainable. There’s gangster asian sugar, who speaks in ebonics and has pretty much retired lately but with whom my hs and college friends were pretty well acquainted, because we were all gangster asians then. Now she only makes appearances when provoked. There’s emo sugar, who’s the one writing on this blog most of the time. Emo sugar loves cross necklaces and t-shirts with weird logos and rubber black bracelets and lying in bed staring at the ceiling while blasting hipster music and hard metal rock. And finally, arguably the happiest of them all, there’s sleeping sugar, who lives in a whole other world and does crazy amazing things all the time…and turns into a witch when woken up prematurely.

So, all these different facets of my personality – I’m fine and dandy with them all. The only thing that weirds me out a little is when a person who knows only one of the sugars sees another sugar and does a double take. Like, someone who’s only seen working sugar happens to run into fobby sugar somewhere and thinks what the EFF? i’m sure I’d feel a bit weird about that one. Or if someone who knows only emo sugar sees working sugar and thinks wow what a peon sellout of corporate america. It may just be true.

I just hope it’s normal and not a symptom of a progressing road to multiple personalities…. You know those people who are like “no, I was not in the vicinity of Mr. Maplethorpe’s house between the hours of 7:00 and 10:00 PM….. but CINDY might have been…muhahah” But I’m sure everyone’s got different variations to their personalities depending on mood… right?? As weird and divided as mine, right? Please make me feel better.

I’ll be visiting the big VA soon and am truly excited. I can’t wait to see all the lovely faces I’ve missed for so long! My best buddy’s birthday is coming up. Congrats hun! While it may no longer be acceptable for us to act like kids and expect to get away with the things we used to by acting cute (drats), we’ve still got the better half of our lives to spend doing whatever the heck we please, and that amounts to a whole lot! Here’s to the good life :D

ashes to ashes, dust to dust

Do you have that one person who keeps coming back into your life, over and over, pushing you and pulling you and repeating the whole thing until you go batshit mad?

I suppose most levelheaded persons would cut off the cycle of destruction before it gets to that point. Once I put it to mind that I am going to love somebody, I have a hard time quitting. I have a weak will, or heart, or I’m completely guileless, I dunno. Either way, I have a soft spot for a certain unnamed forbidden fruit, and he being the wretched soul he is, has a hard time letting me be as well. All of us who have been in a turbulent relationship — we all come to this crossroads where… either you decide that’s it, I’ve had enough and just walk away and NEVER turn back, or you decide alright, why not, let’s give it another go and you both go plummetting down into the abyss of another dismal, ill-fated episode which will inevitably end in the usual curses, tears, heart break, death threats, what have you.

So any good masochist, like myself, will choose the second route and keep going and dragging it on until it becomes its own kicking, screaming, living entity — you and your partner torture one another emotionally and mentally and can’t give in, yet can’t let go. And ultimately your ideals of romance and love and all those notions will go flying off to never never land. So, the old story, you end up becoming one of those poor, changed souls who 1.) become relentlessly promiscuous and money hungry with the mistaken belief that it gives them power over the opposite sex, or 2.) become jaded, horribly insecure, bitter, scared, egocentric, deluded, maligned, needy, psychotic, or a combination of any of these juicy qualities.

WELL! Before it gets to that point, we have it in us to stop the cycle, exerting some self control — even us sad, masochistically-inclined folks who have a hard time letting go of things, be they bad habits or gum wrappers or favorite blankets or those plastic things that cover watch faces, ipod and phone screens, etc. Oh yeah, and love interests. For the record, I have a hard time letting go of all of the above. So yeah, it’s been hard for me…. and so my point is, for you people like me!! Hopelessly romantic, fatally optimistic — there is a point where something inside you breaks, and you know inside that it’s no use anymore. And so you grit your teeth, you wish them well, and you walk away and live your life.

I used to think he’d be sad, or have a hard time without me. That I had to be there for him, even just nominally, so he had someone to talk to when he was hurting inside. So I stayed there, for him, because he was always such a desolate person behind the perpetual smiles, and something maternal inside me kept me permanently watchful of him. But I realize now that all the while, he was unknowingly taking the cheerfulness out of my heart, draining me of my own zest for life and making all the pretty colors fade, bogging down the songs and dragging me down irreparably with him. I finally caught on..and know now that I need to look out for myself first.

Be selfish…they all told me… look out for number one. I get it now. No regrets! The ending’s just as sweet as the beginning, just in a different, darker way. I know inside, that I am changed and can’t be with him anymore because I don’t have the desire to keep it going. I’m tired. A part of me is sad, of course, at all things that come to an end……but that feeling cannot dilute the shockingly sweet, stinging taste of liberation – the incredulous realization that the years-old rusty shackles have finally, truly come off, with no hard feelings, nothing to hold me back, nothing to make me go what if anymore. Thank God Almighty… I am free, at last!

wanna play?

I am strangely fascinated by and simulaneously repulsed by dolls. Any sort of doll, but mostly those Bisque porcelain dolls with thick eyelashes and eyes that shut when lying down. My mom bought one of those and put them in a room we called the “blue room”, propped on top of the piano. Every time I played the piano I felt its eyes watching me, and at night when I passed by the room I’d see its eerie rigid body and pale, pale face illuminated by the night light. It could just be that dolls have such an odd likeness to people, and yet are lifeless – forever frozen into the same smiling expression and limp poses… or it could just be all those old grotesque Chucky movies I watched as a kid. There’s something sinister about them…and yet, with their perfectly proportioned features, their aesthetic qualities can’t be denied. Some dolls are so beautiful that I just want to keep them in my room and dress them and brush their hair, but then that I start getting that creepy feeling that they’re gonna steal my soul while i’m sleeping or something, and I change my mind.

A few years ago, my cousin in Korea bought me a Blythe doll, which were really popular at the time. It had a pull string, and every time you pulled it, the eyes would change color and position. In truth it freaked me out the moment I saw it, but I smiled obligingly and thanked her for the gift, as I knew these weren’t cheap and she meant well. (My cousin is also a very strange person but that’s another story). I kept the doll on a nightstand next to my bed, and I set her eyes to the green ones, looking straight ahead, because the other ones looked off to the side and it felt like she would be staring at me while I slept.

One day I came home from work…it was dark and the house was cold and drafty,, and as I was getting into bed that night I looked at the doll and almost had a heart attack.. I was expecting to see the same old blank, green-eyed face that I’d always looked at for months…but instead it was glaring at me with red eyes. Heart palpitating with shock, I looked at it again to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating and frantically pulled the string, and the eyes went back to the same old placid green ones. I had forgotten that the doll comes with a set of red eyes as well, and almost cried with subdued terror at the mental image burning itself into my brain. To this day I don’t know why its eyes were red that day, if someone was pulling a prank on me, or whatever…. but that doll is now gone and out of my life and causes me no more stress.

Anyway, what spawned this entry is a trailer I saw for a movie coming out in March. It’s about a ventriloquist’s dummies, which look delightfully freaky. It’s by the same people who directed/produced Saw, which ranks up there in horror movies in my book, and I’ve seen a lot. I hope this one to come doesn’t flop into the cheesy, inane horror movie category… like 90% of the ones that come out lately. Although I don’t know how scary this one could be. It does look slightly cheesy… Movies involving dolls and clowns and such were terrifying for me as a child, but will they be sufficiently scary enough for me now, as a fully grown and rational adult, to whimper and scream and cry for mommy?? I hope so.