He’s finally found his problem. It’ll take him a while to solve it but he will get there. But the most important part is he’s found the problem.

20 Things I Wish I Had Known When Starting Out in Life

#7. All the stuff you�re doing that seems hard � it will be of use. This is the first one that might not be as obvious. There were times in my life when work was hard, and I did it anyway, but hated it. I did it because I had to, but boy did it stress me out and leave me exhausted. Hard work isn�t as easy as I wanted it to be. But you know what? Every bit of hard work I did without knowing why I was doing it � it�s paid off for me in the long run. Maybe not right away, but I�m using skills and habits I learned during those times of high stress and long hours and tedious work � I use them all the time, and they�ve made me into the person I am today. Thank you, younger Leo!

Exactly! I’m living it out. Studying Korean is hard right now…but I know it’ll pay off. :-)

I turn 27 years old today.

Here’s my previous posts on the same day:

Twenty-six years old
The Existence of 24 years old on this Planet Earth.
I turn 25 today.

Like I said last year, I’m gonna write a post on my birthdays, it feels like giving a gift to myself because the ability to write is a gift itself. So, I have 3 years left to 30. Wow. Time’s flying by. A lot has happened since my last birthday. I moved coast to coast, from DC to California. Ha I don’t have a Subaru WRX anymore, now Honda Element where she and I shall go far. I’ve already slept overnight in it at Lake Tahoe; that was cool and fun. Gonna do more of that soon.

One big thing I’ve accomplished is that I have managed to maximize my 401k. That is $15,500 a year and company matching half of that so I am saving $23,250 a year plus interests and most importantly, zero debt. Well, I suppose that is another achievement too. Doubt I will become a homeowner because costs around here are ridiculously high and I’m constantly amazed at how people continue to find ways to buy houses at like 500k or higher. That’d be paying a loan forever.

Renting Makes More Financial Sense Than Homeownership

“What about the pride of home ownership?”

It’s not for me. I define ownership as no longer having to pay for something and being able to do as I please with it. I own my coffee maker. House owners must pay taxes each year even when their mortgage payments are done. In certain markets they can’t even make changes to the houses they’ve paid for without seeking the approval of others. Personally, I feel the pride of ownership for shares of businesses, and I’m proud to occupy a nice place while leaving the burden of poor returns and maintenance to someone else.

Unless I move to a state where a house can be bought 200k or under, I might reconsider. For now, nope. I am happy with where I am now, all of my basic needs are met and I’m having a time of my life. I’m gonna explore life, make friends and help others. I know I’ll be comfortable later in my life, with a house or not. Just a roof over my head is good enough. I share a nice well-maintained apartment with a great roommate who is Japanese and is fluent in four languages. Ofc, ASL is one of them. We met through Craigslist and turned out that we have some mutual friends. How small world.

This year, I’m gonna do a lot of activities. I plan to become a member at a golf course, play in tournaments and see where I stand at. I’m gonna do more of running, rockclimbing, snowboarding, traveling, learn how to surf, camping, hiking, working out, dancing, basketball, take more pictures, building websites/apps, watch more movies, and writing.

Tonight, I will have a bday party at Dave n Busters and it’s gonna be a lot of fun. :-) See you all there!

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn�t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark Twain

Something’s going to change…

I realize I haven’t blogged much lately. I don’t want to say that’s because I was busy, which I was but I want to stay committed and try to write as much as I can. Anyway, some updates that’s happened in the last four weeks.

I flew to Illinois to visit parents the first weekend of May as I hadn’t seen them since Christmas. It is painful knowing that time is going by fast and my parents are growing old faster than you can say medicare. My mom’s already a senior citizen and chances for her to become a grandmother are pretty slim since I doubt my finger is going to be bearing jewelry till well after I’m 30 and that’s still four years away, then probably a few couple years more till I’m ready to have kids. So, my mom could be 70 before she can finally add one more word to make it compound. For now, I gotta bear with her for still calling me a baby boy.

While I was there, we went to deaf expo in St. Louis, which was my third trip to a such event. First one was in Chicago, second was Virginia, and now this city home to the Gateway Arch. I wonder why do they still call it a Deaf Expo. It should be called as a battle of VRS services because there are like 8 different VRS services invading 90% of the convention space. Also, I noticed that their booths kept getting larger, more colorful like one VRS company looks like they come right out of Wonka’s Chocolate Factory with their purple setups, and another company thinks they could be as cool as Apple company with their brushed metal design and shadowed lights. Then, I realized something, we’re just like cash cows. The more cows they could register, the more money they can make. That’s what we are to them. Seems like pretty much of our Deaf economy is based on how many minutes we use VRS, then those minutes are billed to the FCC, which gives out paychecks. So we still live on the government’s welfare, either directly or indirectly.

On that Sunday, my parents and I had a brunch with the Chances and one lady who recently lost her husband. It has become into a sort of tradition to have a get-together with them whenever I come in town. Tom Chance was my dorm head supervisor at Illinois school for the Deaf and I was under his wing from 5th grade to 8th grade. He is one of my role models and he carries a certain class that reminds me of Cary Grant. He is also known for making the best martini in town and has a wine cellar in his own basement. I was especially honored when he gave me his favorite light blazer that didn’t quite fit him anymore. I don’t remember feeling this honored. I immediately recognized the blazer because that’s the one he would often choose to wear to award events or graduations at the end of year. The feeling I got was like getting Michael Jackson’s white glove or Elvis Presley’s favorite leather jacket. Something like that.

To this day, I haven’t worn the blazer yet, still waiting for the right occasion but you can bet that when time comes, I’ll wear it with class and integrity that he has always showed.

The interesting thing now with the Chances is that their daughter has adopted two kids from Korea, and I remember I was a little kid when my parents and I attended her wedding. Now, they’re raising two Korean-American kids so I wonder if I had something to do with that.

Before I knew, the weekend had gone by and it was time to go back to DC. The last two weekends, I went on two bachelor’s party, which was accompanied with lots of beers.

to be continued…

On the ad, it says “You’re born small and weak. You die small and weak. How you look in between is up to you.”

Ha, so true.

Man, my sleeping cycle is seriously f**ked up. For the last two weeks or so, I’ve been going to bed really late like around 3 or 4 am but still managed to get up by 10 am to go to work at 11 am. Till recently, looks like my body (more of my brain) has finally taken its toll so I was feeling tired and went to bed early at 11 pm—–believe it or not, my body thinks it’s early. I was hoping I could sleep till 7 am to get my full 8 hours but nope, my body began to stir, slowly getting out of REM stage and woke up at 3 am. Three o’clock!!? Now, I can’t go back to sleep and I dunno if I can go back…. I want to play golf before work. Maybe I’ll stay awake and overload on the coffee or mountain dew till I finish my shift. Oh well.

Enough of my sleep ramblings, I wanted to share that I finished reading a book called “Brainac” by Ken Jennings. If you’re not familiar with the name, he flat out broke the Jeopardy! record for the most consecutive games, seventy-five, and earned three million dollars in winnings. This so happened because Jeopardy! decided not to limit five days winning anymore. A champion can stay on as long as s/he keeps winning. I remember reading about him in the newspapers and started to watch him on Jeopardy! I wish I had a tivo so I could watch all his appearances, maybe there’s a dvd? When I watched him on the show for the first time, I could immediately tell he was different from any contestant and his knowledge of trivia was brilliant and freakingly astounding. He was like a machine, going through questions like he’s Dave Crockett shooting these tin cans as they fall one by one quickly. He knows even the smallest details that no one would bother to know but he knows. He said he enjoys knowing “weird stuffs”, which apparently is extremely useful in trivia.

My first experience with trivia probably was the Gallaudet Academic bowl competition. I believe it first started in 1997 ‘cuz my good friend, Kent, was on the team along with his classmates, Beth and Carolyn. They were a bunch of smart seniors. Well, Kent was definitely a slacker but he knows a lot. They went to Kansas to compete in the Midwest Regional, which they won handily over Texas and earned a trip to the deaf national tournament at Gallaudet Univ. in Washington, DC. They didn’t win as California School for the Deaf Riverside (CSDR), became the first school to win the tournament. Kent, Beth and Carolyn graduated that year and who’s the next crop? It was Nick Beck, Jill Birchall, Kevin Symons and myself.

I truly feel that we couldn’t have a better team, with Nick being our “anchor”, it was his first chance to be in the spotlight than constantly being teased in school or getting stuffed in some lockers. I think we also got to see how smart he really was, despite his eccentric personality. He reads a ton of books, possesses a sponge-like memory, is excellent at remembering people names like the Supreme Court judges or U.S. presidents, and current world events as he likes to read newspapers daily.

Jill, the only girl on the team, knew what most girls like to know–celebrities, literature, art—and she even surprised us with some music knowledge like she knew who was on the Grateful Dead band, despite we’re all deaf and knows NOTHING about music culture. Boy, we would sink without her. She’d spend summers catching up on People magazines and YM/Seventeen’s, although she probably has graduated to reading Cosmopolitan now. Like Nick, she remembers names very well.

Our third player, Kevin, he’s the one who got married recently is a different kind of nerd than Nick is. He wasn’t necessarily eccentric, just a bit of loner who would wander in his own world but he came alive in geography and he knows all U.S. capitals. He’s also good at math—quickly solving problems and guess what? he is now a project manager of a small firm that drafts blueprints for wealthy people who want to build a million dollar home. Those blueprints cost more than four figures.

Now, the fourth player, me. Ha, I don’t have much to say except I know a bit about sports, some random facts (maybe weird) and history. That’s about it. I wonder how did I get on the team. I think I was good at keeping the team together and being upbeat, like Jill and Nick didn’t get along so well, ha. So, that’s the four of us and one coach/teacher, Marybeth Lauderdale. I can see why she was so excited for us and really thought we had a team that was good enough to win the national. Except on one question: Name the two moons around Mars.

It was the last game in the Midwest Regional tournament, having blown away every other teams except maybe for one team, Indiana. Our final opponent was Missouri; we had beaten them in the first round but they fought their way back into the final round. Their team was led by one girl—I don’t remember her name—but she wasn’t pretty and looked like a snotty pig to me. One thing I still remember about that girl was that one MSD student told me that she wasn’t even a full-time MSD student; she only took one class, a PE, at the deaf school while the rest of her classes was at a public school. She had just transferred there so she can be eligible to participate in the academic bowl competition. On the contrary, Jill was born deaf and entered 0 to 3 infant program at ISD and remained there till she graduated. You think such a “scandal” would only occur on the NCAA level? Think again!

In the first three rounds, our brains were hitting on full cylinders, pulling ahead hard and was ten points away from having an insurmountable lead that they couldn’t beat us on the final “jeopardy” question. I think the score was 125 to 55. But on the final question, “Where will be the next Deaf Winter Olympics held in?” That pig-faced girl buzzed in before I could and she answered correctly, Denmark. That gave her team 10 points, from 55 to 65, thus not out of the game because they could bet all of their points to double their score and we’d have to be wise with our wager. I remember I was soo pissed as they still had a chance. And what a big chance that was.

In our final team conference, we knew they would bet it all so we bet only 10 points. The final question’s about to start and it was to “name the two moons around Mars.” We looked at each other, expecting to see who knows the answer. None of us knew. We looked over the other side. We saw the pig-faced girl made a gasp, looked down and wrote the answer. She knew! that pig-faced girl. We tried to re-focus and discuss, frantically trying to get an answer but it was all hopeless. We had lost. They doubled their score to 130 and we went 10 points down to 115. The whole thing was over and they’re going to Washington, DC, not us. It was the worst feeling, like getting kicked in the stomach. I felt like throwing up. Really was sick. I remember being shocked, then got really mad at myself for not stealing the last question—the next Deaf Olympics. I knew that one. Like Ken Jennings, he got jeopardized for not knowing the answer to “most of this firm’s seven thousand seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year.”

That was eight years ago and I still remember like it happened last week. At least I had good memories, it was a blast with my team and we really learned a lot of stuffs like how facts are connected to each other and being more in touch with the world like I want to travel Europe someday. I enjoy doing crossword puzzles and like to watch Jeopardy! shows. Of course, I had my high school crush on Jill, so maybe that’s why I got on the team. ;-)

Haven’t blogged here in a while. Been incredibly busy with work. My place is a Merry-Go-Round now, with roommate changes. Andy Tao has bid his farewell to Washington DC after living there for five years. He came to DC to be with his girlfriend and to take up another Masters degree in Biology or Genetics. Broke up with his girlfriend but remained in DC for a few more years till he met another girl who’s a floridian. He got a job at FSDB as a Biology teacher and to live with his girlfriend. I wish him the best of luck. With him leaving, we’ve had three people stay at my place. One will move to California and another one to replace him. That’s what I mean, my place is a merry-go-round.

Next month, I’ll move in back with my uncle in Leesburg that is actually closer to where I work than from DC. That’ll help me save gas; I need that. Will be living there temporarily till I figure out where I want to go. It’d be great if I could relocate to Chicago to be closer to my parents, as I realize they are not going to live forever. :-/

This weekend, will go to Paw Paw in West Virginia to watch the deaf disc golf national tournament and to root for my friend, Kent, who’s asked me to be one of his groomsmen as he’ll get married next summer.

All in all, summer is simply going too fast.

The weekend’s about to end…never mind, it has already ended. Just when I thought I have nothing filled over the weekend, events began to pop up and when I look back, I did pretty a lot. Last Fri, I worked late as I was trying to finish a project (it didn’t quite get finished but when is it ever a finished project?), and then had to clean out my work queue. Even there’s still some things to do when I get back on Monday, doh. Got home, rest, thinking abt what I want to do with my limited free time. It went like this.

Saturday: got the day going by doing errands first before meeting Luke at the golf course to play a 18 holes. =) My driving was definitely rusty; dunno what the heck happened to it. Did I lose my core strength in swinging the driver? I think perhaps I was trying to swing it too hard; I always want to hit the ball hard but I know it’s the opposite. Let the driver does it job. Gotta remember that. But my short game has improved a lot; putting a touch on my putting and chipping. I got a 87, with mulligans, of course. After the golf, went to Gallaudet to watch the men’s basketball game. Damn, that was a good game, seeing the Bisons beat the Catholics for the first time since 1996. The Catholics are leading the CAC conference. In sum, that was a great upset to witness. =)

Later that night, went to a bar called the Irish Times. It was the first time I went there and while it looked small, it had a dancing floor downstairs in the underground and upstairs, there was a one-man live band signing whatever he was saying. One thing that I thought was cool is they had beer bottles out in a big metal ice-filled cooler and you just pick the beer up and give three george washingtons to the guy behind the coolers. Simple. No need telling the bartender what you want and you still got the wrong one anyway. Oh yeah, there were two birthday boys–Marlon and Ian, 21st and 22nd respectfully, so we partied through midnight to make it like killing two birds with one stone. ;-)

Sunday: slept in late but my hangover wasn’t too bad. Got an email from my uncle Bud, giving me the address to watch my cousin swim in a synchrozied meet. It was my first time going to one. I realize it’s just like figure skating but with water instead of ice. There were solos and team competitions. Interesting. Watching those girls swim, I know I’d choke on water as soon as I do a back rotation or whatever that move was called. =) Good job, Nina!

Then my roommie and I hosted a last-minute b-party for Ian, coupling it with a guys’ night. Dang, these charcoals take forever to heat up. Our only female roommie made brownies so we guys used the brownie as a cake and pathetically used a match for a candle, sing-sign the birthday song. Hey it’s the thought that counts and he enjoyed the brownie. =) What can be a guy’s night without playing some poker? So, we played poker and I made a foolish mistake, lost my $20. =( I’m just glad I don’t play it professionally or I’d have to declare bankruptcy. Oh yeah, watched NFL but they weren’t even close, with Pittsburgh handing it to Denver and the same went for Seattle over Carolina. Thought it’d be closer than that. None are my “fave” teams but if I had to pick, it’ll be the Pittsburgh Steelers to become the 60th team to win Super Bowl. But congrats to Seattle Seahawks for entering SB for the first time ever. I still remember how bad they were when they were an expansion team.

Now I’m behind my computer once again, thinking, writing, (and a bit of surfing too), reflecting, remembering, and finally sleeping soon.

Since last year, as I started to have a steady income by having a real job instead of applying to graduate schools, I decided to read more about finance so I bought some books: the automatic millionaire, smart couples finish rich, and the millionaire next door. Obviously you could tell that I want to be a millionaire and unlike my dad, I can’t become a millionaire by buying those lottery tickets every week.

First of all, please don’t think I have a greedy side that I want to become a millionaire. It’s because I want to be finanically independent so that I don’t have to work well into my sixties. Life is way too short for that. Besides, I’m fascinated by this idea that you don’t have to be earning six figures to be able to become a millionaire. You can earn as little as 40k to achieve a million dollars in your savings.

After reading those books, I learned quite a number of things. Most of them are pretty common sense like don’t put yourself in debt. Good thing to know that the only debt I have is my car loan, which I hope to pay off in about 2 years. I learned that being rich and being wealthy aren’t the same. They are two different things. Another thing I learned was to always pay yourself first, which means money goes into your savings immediately after you receive your paycheck. The author, David Bach, suggests that you save 20% of what you earn and you’ll be well on your way to being finanically sound. “The Next Door Millionaire” author said he found that what set them (the millionaires) apart from millon other people who are in debt more than 10k is because they simply track their money and keep a cash flow spreadsheet. After reading those words, I decided to keep a spreadsheet of my cash flow—how much I earn and how much I spend. It may turn to be the best move I have ever made in my whole life.

In the past, I thought I had a pretty good idea of where my money was going and thought I was doing a pretty good job at saving my money but I was completely wrong. After putting a large sum of my savings on buying a new car, paying off all the outstanding transactions that my college had billed me before they would send me my diploma, and moving into a place far from my hometown, my savings was pretty much blown. It didn’t help much that I was in my “college guy” mode that I thought if I’m going to get a job in the future, I’ll spend this money now and I’ll get it back later when I get a job and put it into savings. Nope, it didn’t exactly work out like that.

So, I started a spreadsheet about a year ago and I thought I would have abandoned it a long ago but thanks to online banking, it was actually easy to track my money and record every transaction in my spreadsheet. A year passed, my spreadsheet begins to look like, well, a spreadsheet, instead of a blank empty white spreadsheet. I could have sworn that it was done by a CPA, not someone like me. Maybe it’s just me but I find it fascinating to look at my spreadsheet and see how much I spent on electronic stuffs, foods, gas, clothes, etc. And realizing the mistakes I’ve made, which is a lot.

This is how my 2005 budget looks like:

• In the foods category, I spent about $3,000 or about $250 a month on groceries and eating out. Shit, I’m a hungry man with an expensive palate. (how do buffets and sushi sound?)
• I’ve withdrawn a total of $2,150 dollars out of ATM. Anyone wanna rob me?
• I paid $830 on gas. Could have been a lot worse if I owned a SUV.
• Being a golf avid player (and a wanna-be pro), I spent $855 on course fees, equipment, etc.
• I enjoy reading books, so I spent $160. Education sure comes with a price. And dammit, I need to sell these books.
• I spent $370 on clothes. Not too bad for a guy, don’t you think?
• I read somewhere that someone put “stupid mistakes” category for not paying bills on time, fines, fees, or penalities he has to pay, so I thought that was a good idea and it was a very costly one.

  So, in bank fees, I had to pay $170 and this next one, I’m not very proud of myself, I paid a whopping $825 dollars in parking tickets (lots of them), stupid speed camera tickets, and traffic tickets (for failing to stop completely and among others). I guess that’s what you get for living in DC your first year. That comes to almost one thousand dollars that I could have avoided to pay if I followed the sign, pressed on the brake more, and eased off the gas pedal a bit more. This year, my goal is to pay zero. My right foot, please behave.

• For us who own a sidekick, I paid $386 in subscriptions and extra programs like games. I can’t wait when my employer will cover my sidekick. Hehe.

Even all with those expenses I had to shell out, I was still able to save 20% of my total earnings in 2005 and I wouldn’t have done that if it wasn’t for my precious spreadsheet and by paying myself first. Now that year 2006 has started, my goal is to save 30% (large part of that will go toward housing down payment wherever I decide to settle down), pay nothing in “stupid mistakes”, and perhaps reduce my ATM withdrawls but I’ll never ever reduce my food budget. :-)

Anyone up for some sushi?

Saw this on someone’s blog and thought I’d share with you guys. A good perspective on life and money.

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.

“Not very long,”� answered the Mexican.

“But then, why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?” asked the American.

The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.

The American asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, play the guitar, and sing a few songs. I have a full life.”

The American interrupted, “I have an MBA from Harvard, and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat.”

“And after that?” asked the Mexican.

“With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge new enterprise.”

“How long would that take?”� asked the Mexican.

“Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years,” replied the American.

“And after that?”

“Afterwards? Well my friend, That’s when it gets really interesting,”� answered the American, laughing. “When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!”�

“Millions? Really? And after that?” said the Mexican.

“After that you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings doing what you like and enjoying your friends.”�

And the moral is: know where you’re going in life; you may already be there.

Just a short message to let everybody know—if they do check my page—that I’m still alive and kicking. The only excuse I have is that time’s going by too fast. Had a three days long conference at DHHIG recently. Learned a quite about communication and networking in the federal government. Prior to the conference, I played golf on Saturday and Sunday. Also last Friday, I went to a DPHH event and I made some interesting observations, in which I’ll post about it soon enough. Now, I just flew in today to visit my parents here in Illinois. I’ve been under this roof ever since I was brought to the United States when I was three years old. Ofc, the layout has changed since then but it still brings a lot of memories. Dad bought an all-in-one printer/scanner/copier, so I’m gonna scan a lot of pics and feed into a photo gallery. More to come!

Oh yeah, it does feel nice to come home and have a refigerator full of foods that didn’t come out of your pocket. :-)

Last night, just as I was getting ready to go to bed early after fighting off the urge to take a nap after work (my blood sugar level alway seems to plummet after I leave work, causing me to be really sleepy, dunno why). I checked my usual necessities—sidekick, wallet (so I could buy foods, :-) ), and keys. Except that I couldn’t find my f**king keys. I looked everywhere in the house and I couldn’t afford to lose it again because I did lose it last fall and I’m hanging on my only car key because it costs over $200 to order a new key due to some stupid security code inside the key to activate the ignition in my car. I remember I left it somewhere on the arms of the couch, so it probably had slipped into the cushions, so I looked everywhere into that damn couch. I thought about ripping up that cheap couch because there was a small crease underneath where my keys might have crawled into there but my roommate said no, it’s impossible for my keys to go through it. Well, hello, do you see my keys around? If you don’t see it, maybe it’s in there, eh? but I realize he might be right. So I spent a good hour looking for my keys and it occurred to me that my keys may not be even in the house. And my roommate’s friend was here recently, so I gave up on my pathetic search and told my roommate to ask him if he mistook my keys. So, I went to bed, exhausted, and only six hours of sleep. Grr.

The following morning, I got up for work as usual, tried to look for keys for a few more minutes but nothing. Walked, getting metroed to work. Then my roommate paged me saying that his friend indeed has my keys. Oh that gotta be the best news of the day. Appparently, he was too stoned that he thought my keys were his. Phffth. But I can’t put all the blame on him cuz I shouldn’t have left the keys on the couch in the first place.

Now, I’m thinking if I should shell out two hundred bucks for second key in case I lost my keys again….

When the year turned 2005, someone asked me what’s my new year resolution. I thought about it and I realized that it’s nearly the same as every last year—get into a better shape, read more books, eat healthier foods, stay in touch with my parents more often, don’t go to bed too late, don’t oversleep, and so on. I realize they were not exactly very inspirational so I looked around other people’ blogs to see what they say about theirs. One actually read a book every week and blogged about it. Someone actually ran at least a mile everyday. Someone else wants to watch Oprah and Dr. Phil shows everyday. There were many good ideas but I’m not that ambitious or have no desire to do that kind of thing. Fast-forward to April 6th, 2005, I found my new year resolution and that’s to learn Korean language, Hangul. My textbook arrived yesterday, so I begin my self-education now.

After flipping through the textbook, I realize something. There is no way am I gonna learn this all by my own. To keep my motivation high, I need to find someone or a group to share it with, someone who can help guide me and recognize my mistakes. It is fruitless to learn a new language if you don’t have someone to chat. It’s like learning a new magic trick and you don’t have anyone to show to. Again, I go to the web and to my surprise, I found some good websites. korea.banoffeepie.com. Actually, their tagline is “Korean-related weblogs written in English.” Simple. This website is like a webring that contains the list of blogs that relate to Korea. I just submitted my blog there but it has to be approved first before it goes into the list. Next one I found was the meetup here in DC. I joined the group and hope to meet some of them!

Like being a teacher, I have to make a lesson plan. First week – memorize the 21 vowels and 19 consonants. Make index cards as flash cards. I feel so like a kid in elementary school!

This post is a sequel to my previous post about having a sandpaper in my throat. Know what? That damn sandpaper just refused to go away after taking three medicine cups, equilvalent to six tablespoons, of Tylenol Severe Cold syrup, four Nyquil liquid gels, two Advil pills, and 13 straight hours of sleep. I did have a fever and I got better but my throat still hurt as if there’s broken glass inside my throat, so I knew I had a strep throat and had to get antibiotics. Where to get the antibiotics? I wish I could pretend to be a doctor and write myself a prescription and just get over to CVS pharmacy and get it. I tried calling around DC to get an appointment but most of them are full till next week. I can’t wait that long so I had no choice but go to the hospital. I called the Howard University Hospital (the closest to where I live) to see if they have an interpreter on call and they said yes. So I got myself there, signed in and I waited, waited. And I waited. About four hours later, they finally got me into a patient’s room. Turned out there was no interpreter but on tv, like VP except it was a poor quality. The interpreter had a hard time understanding what I wanted to say. What’s more, prior to that, the nurses spent a half hour just to get the TV working and get the interpreter to answer. Then, a black doctor came and he didn’t even look at me at all, he looked to the TV interpreter to talk to me. He asked me what’s wrong with me. I said I had a strep throat so I need antibiotics. He said “Uh-huh, we’ll see about that.” We went through normal routine and I must admit, it was kinda funny having a TV presence in the room. Then the doctor said, “Mm-hmm, you probably have a strep throat”, and said thank you to the TV interpreter, then he just left the room. I waited for like a half hour in the room and I was like “WTF is going on” so I decided to get out and checked what’s going on. A nurse saw me and waved at me, “come here.” I came to the desk and the nurse said “here’s your checkout form”. I thought “Oh great, why didn’t you just pass that under the door while I was waiting?” I signed my name as fast as I could and the outside was already dark by the time I got out.

I was so exhausted when I got out of the hospital and I had to take the metro to get back home as I didn’t drive to the hospital. As I was waiting for the metro subway to come, I see two kids standing next to their father. The subway opened doors and I went through the doors and was about to sit down on a two-seat empty row. As I was sitting down, I immediately noticed that every other row had already been taken by either one seat or two and I got this instinct feeling that the two kids wouldn’t want to sit separate, so I got up and walked to the next empty seat, leaving the entire row open for the kids to sit down. I sat down opposite side and I felt something was looking behind my back so I turned my head. The little girl was looking at me and she had this happy look on her face. I turned back and thought “Even if I’m having an awful day, it doesn’t mean you still can’t do a nice thing for someone.” The doors closed and the metro subway started to move forward.

P.S. Don’t ever go to Howard University Hospital, which actually means “HUH?”