technology eludes me

i think i'm a creature of habit.  i don't like to try new things, though i do admit that once i master a new thing, it becomes my new "old thing" and then i'm perfectly fine with it.  but first times for anything generally make me uneasy.

so today i decided i was going to try to check in online for my flight tomorrow.  now keep in mind that i booked this itinerary on ONE reservation (ie. i booked for both of us) because i have status and al does not.  therefore if we book on the same reservation (ie. the person with status books it) - then both of us get the benefits of a free checked bag, the premier security line, etc. 

the other benefit that i was vying for was that with status (as low as my silver status is on the totem pole) - you are eligible for free upgrades when they're available.  given that our return flight from costa rica has an ENTIRELY EMPTY business class as of today, it seemed like our chances were pretty good - and according to the upgrade policy, it's supposed to be available to the premier member and the companian traveling on the same reservation.

ok so this morning i decide to try and check in for this flight online - using my phone, no less.   i managed to check myself in, but there was a problem with alan since his passport info wasn't in there.  fine.  i figured it would check me in and we would check him in later.

little did i know that it would then proceed to SPLIT our reservation, giving me a new confirmation number, and suddenly taking all premier benefits off of his reservation.  now united, like all other business, is going cheap and trying to get you to deal with customer service through the computer.  no, alex, i do not want to ask you questions.  i want to talk to a real person.

unfortunately, their customer service center, while manned by living humans, is not much better.  no, i don't understand what you're saying with your heavy indian accent.  no, i don't believe you when the help you offer me is the best you can do.  no, your supervisor whose accent is slightly better but still from a developing country somewhere, is not particularly helpful either.

so whoever designed the system failed to make a way to recombine reservations after the computer decides to split them.  additionally, al's check in STILL failed, so we still have to go super early to sort this all out.

someone is going to hear about this.  fortunately the first leg of our trip is in business class, so we can check in in the biz class station.  which usually has nicer and more helpful reps because they actually need to retain your business.  that being said, i'm peeved beyond measure because not only did i spend my morning on the phone and online trying to sort this out - at this point, we're STILL not checked in, and with the split, it looks like i might get upgraded on our flight back and he will not. 

yes, these are first world problems - but it just doesn't make sense to me that the system is designed to not have a manual override.

i'm never checking in online again.

ideas that sound good in theory

when we went to thailand a couple years ago, i was perusing tripadvisor and came across the #1 thing to do:  ziplining.  not just any old ziplining though, treetopasia's ecopark and 26 station ziplining and second day of obstacle adventure course ruined me for all future trips. 

i read the testimonials, saw the pictures and videos, and i was totally sold.  until we got there and i realized ... i'm afraid of heights, falling, moving fast, and risk in general.  unfortunately i didn't figure that out until i was standing on a platform (with no railings), holding onto my bunjee, and staring down 50 meters (yes, meters, not feet) at a jungle below me. 

and the guide grins at me and says "one way ticket!" 

such is the interesting thing about asia ... they didn't build in a contingency plan for when people want to chicken out.  you basically only have one way to go back to where you started and that's to zip away.

needless to say, i spent a lot of time hugging trees on that tour.  alan spent a lot of time laughing at me hugging trees. 

but about halfway through, i started to really enjoy it.  it was every bit as amazing as the advertisements ... once i got over the fact that i didn't really enjoy the specifics of it and the fact that i might die. 

so that brings me to my next adventure ... iceland.  i'm not entirely sure what possessed me to go ahead and book this trip, but everyone says it's amazing, so despite the fact that it will undoubtably be cold ... that's where we're going in march.

so again, i did some research and came up with this excursion that looks cool in theory:  snorkeling between the american and eurasian continents. 

ok, really, i just want this picture and i want it to be of me and alan. 

so i realize that iceland is cold.  and water is cold.  hence dunking of bodies into water in iceland will probably be cold.  and that i don't like deep waters, nor swimming anywhere where my feet can't touch the bottom.  (though apparently the water is so clear that despite being really deep, i'll still be able to SEE the bottom). 

i think i'm going to severely regret this the half hour leading up to the tour at maybe the first 5 minutes.  but after that, i think it could be awesome. 

i think i'm weird like that.  for how much i overthink all the decisions in my life...ultimately i think i decide based on my gut.  which is ironic because my gut really doesn't like anything risky and kind of likes sitting on the couch. 

or maybe i don't know my gut very well at all.  but it said go snorkel in iceland, so i guess we'll find out how that goes ...
 

insomnia

after 2 sleepless nights (sunday waiting for alan to get home while he was hanging with ki till the wee hours of the morning, and monday when his cpap leaked and the sound of air mixed with snoring kept me up all night) - my tuesday full of meetings and tutoring till almost 11pm resulted in some pretty bad headaches.  like the kind that pounds when you move too quickly and feels like you're having a stroke.

marriage is a daily reminder that you're not a very nice person.  granted, i married the nicest guy in the whole world, so i'm clearly the "mean" one (as told to me repeatedly by dave, my hand therapist).  but that fact aside, i realize how impatient i am, and how hard it is to pause and think about how i want to say things before i say them.

especially on lack of sleep.

al always offers to sleep on the couch because he feels guilty that my quality of sleep is so low, but i never really like kicking him out.  sometimes he tricks me and leaves while i'm sleeping, but he never wakes up first to make it back before i wake up.

yesterday i'd just about had it though, and i asked him if he could sleep on the couch for one night because i desperately needed a good night's rest.  the left side of my brain just wouldn't stop pounding. 

ever since the summer, i've been waking up at 7am, and i thought it was just because i'm a light sleeper and i get up when the sun comes up. 

but this morning i woke up at 8:45am ...

i don't want to believe it, but i'm starting to think that i really can't sleep deeply unless i'm by myself.  i thought i was just a light sleeper, but when i think back to when i was single, i slept fine.  i didn't necessarily sleep for very many hours, but my head hit the pillow and i woke up the next morning without interruptions, pretty much every day.  and when i go on business trips ... barring jetlag, i usually sleep just fine. 

the scientist in me wants to devise some sort of experiment to isolate which variable is the culprit ... is it sound?  light?  movement?  heat?  lack of heat because he steals the blankets? 

there has to be a solution ... but i'm kind of stumped.

puppy

i really want a puppy.  after spending time with my parents and their incredibly lovable dogs, i have to admit that there's something about waking up in the morning and having these furry things waiting at your door, and so happy to see you.  like, falling over each other, jumping up and down happy to see you.  they say that people with dogs are generally less stressed - and i have a lot of stress. 

that being said, the activation energy to go out and get a dog is rather high.  when i think about how small our apt is, how little free time we have, and how little grass there is in the city, it's hard to justify getting a dog.  it's yet another set of bills, another mouth to feed, and another thing to worry about.  something to get a sitter for when we're on vacation.  i mean, if we wanted that sort of responsibility, we should just go and have a kid.  well, that's more work, more expensive, more stressful, but in the end longer-lasting and more fulfilling, i suppose.

the other downside is ... dogs don't live that long.  10 years?  15 at best?  that's a long time to get attached to something that's going to leave you heartbroken.  i'm not sure if i can handle it.  plus given that we will probably have kids in the next 5 years or so, i don't want to create a lady and the tramp situation where the dog gets kicked to the curb. 

but they're just so darn cute ... well, at least this gives some motivation to go visit my parents more often. 

decades

as i get closer to my birthday, i started thinking back on the previous decades (ugh there are so many now) of this impending 32.  my dad has this theory that every time he turns an age ending in 9, it's a rough year - but then when it evens out to "0" ending, that year is great.  dark before dawn, i suppose.

so here we go:

22:  that was a great year for accomplishments.  i graduated from grad school, made my first collegiate national team, went to my first world tournament, led MIT to our first INCTL (now ECTC) cup, we finally got recognition as a club sport.  i went on IV staff for a year.

12:  that was a great year period.  7th grade was the best.  i won some magazine sale thing at school and got to go on the coveted limo lunch.  we started doing discipleship and memory verses at church.  school was so easy i never had to work hard.  joined my first orchestra. 

2:  i don't remember much of this but the pictures are pretty cute, and who doesn't like being 2? 

huh.  that being said, whatever happened to 31?  flew by before i noticed it was gone...

patience

"did you think that God was going to make TLC leading easy?"

lisa asked me this this morning and the obvious answer is "no" but i guess i didn't realize which ways it would be difficult.  or it's more like, i didn't think that getting the ball rolling would be so arduous.

perhaps God is trying to teach me patience (as always), particularly with flexibility (i have none) and with people who require a lot of it.  i think i've always disliked options, both for myself and in general, but this whole shopping period for small groups has me confused week to week.  you work so hard to woo people, and here we are, the morning of tlc, and we have no idea who's coming tonight.  or rather, we know the majority of people are not, there are a handful of people who haven't responded (ugh, non-responding is such a major pet peeve of mine) and a couple maybes.  we have one 'yes' and i'm just hoping he won't be scared off if he's the only one. 

i have serious faith issues - God will give us a group regardless of our efforts.  and God will force me to be patient regardless of my desire to not be driven to it. 

yeehaw.

wearing different hats

my boy took his first promotion test yesterday - it's interesting being on the other side of things, i suppose this is about as close as i'm going to get to being a parent.  on the one hand, you're proud that he's doing well and not melting down, and that he's made so much progress.  on the other hand - it could have been better.  haha.  he's still young enough and so darn cute that it doesn't really matter - but i also found myself wishing that i could have brought him more often or that i still lived with them so that we could have practiced more. 

that being said, we had a major cram session an hour before the test, since my cousin didn't bring him to class last weekend and i knew he would be rusty.  boy was i worried when i started reviewing blocks and turning around and he was totally flubbing.  sigh.  but we went through everything until it was good enough (though not perfect) and i just prayed that he would remember when he took the test. 

after all that, we were sitting down and i realized ... he's only 6.  and he doesn't come as often as he should.  wearing the teacher hat and eemoh hat at the same time is tough. 

so i put on my eemoh hat

me:  "hey buddy, you know i love you"

i-man:  "i know.  i love you too"

me:  "sorry i had to yell at you, but you're going to be great at your test"

i-man:  "that's nothing ... you should hear mommy.  THAT's yelling"

haha, at least he's conditioned to know that drilling isn't a bad thing.  and uh, conditioned to throw his mother under the bus. 

vacation planning

i know, i know, i should probably go on my current vacation before i start planning the next one.  al laughed at me this morning because i was trying to make sense of the european train system and figure out the best way to maximize a future italy/france vacation.

but ... i'm already done planning our greek isles trip.  (or everything is 90% nailed down and paid for, save the 10% of time i scheduled for relaxing and spontanaeity).  all that's left to do is to go! 

i think vacation planning is the trifecta of how i enjoy spending my time:

1)  planning
2)  maximizing
3)  travelling

taking the vast array of options and flow-charting them down to the best way to spend my time and money, while getting the best pictures. 

that being said, while doing research, i came across some good tips and insights.  i liked this blog because it had a pretty diverse range of places visited:  http://www.thecitytraveler.com/

i think al also thinks i'm weird because i start packing for vacations 2 weeks before we leave.  (inevitably i still end up forgetting something) - but our suitcases have been ready to go since last weekend (save our electric toothbrushes and stuff that you have to pack at the last minute).

that being said, here's the run-down of the upcoming trip:

day 1:  depart from nyc

day 2:  arrive in rhodes (evening), pick up car, relax and settle at the hotel.

day 3:  northern rhodes:  ancient kamari, rhodes town, faliraki beach, possible horseback riding

day 4:  southern rhodes:  lindos, southern beaches, monolithos castle

day 5:  valley of butterflies, fly from rhodes to santorini, dinner in pyrgos

day 6:  explore fira, caldera cruise (volcano, hot springs, thirasia, sunset over oia)

day 7:  pick up car/atv, black beach, red beach, explore oia, hike from fira to oia, sunset picnic on the beach in oia

day 8:  last swim at hotel, ferry santorini to mykonos, mykonos town

day 9:  south coast cruise (dragonissi, frangias, kalfati, paradise beaches), mykonos town


day 10:  delos, rent car/atv, explore beaches around island

day 11:  relax at hotel, explore island, possible horseback riding, return car, ferry to athens

day 12:  depart athens to nyc

yay!  :)

paper anniversary

jungkryu told me i should have a blog, and then i realized ... i do have a blog!  i just haven't frequented it in awhile.  and i'm pretty sure that almost no one reads it, though i have to admit, it's nice to have a record of my thoughts (however nonsensical they may be) to look back upon.

our first anniversary came and went this weekend - hard to believe that just a year ago there was utter madness, an impending thunderstorm, and a bevy of mishaps (including our primary officiant being stuck on a tarmac in chicago). 

i was informed that anniversary gifts have themes - now, who came up with these themes, i don't know, because they're somewhat outdated, but alas, tradition is tradition.  so for the 1st anniv, the theme is paper. 

huh.

what to do about that.  so my cousin gave me the brilliant suggestion (or so she thought) to get him tickets.  cuz tickets are made of paper.  except we just went to see a show last week, and a play the week before that.  i have a tendency to just buy him stuff when i see it (on sale) and so having to think of explicit gifts has been somewhat difficult. 

so one thing i noticed recently was that while al and i spend a lot of quality time together, the specifics of how we spend that time is usually dictated by me.  mostly because i tend to have very definite opinions on what i do/don't want to do, and he tends to be ambivalent or just generally much more flexible.

that being said, i wonder if that sometimes means that he doesn't get to do what he wants to do. 

one time he made an off-handed comment that before we met, he used to go to a lot of concerts.  it's no secret that i'm not really a fan of rock, alternative, or otherwise loud music venues, and since he hasn't really pushed for such things, we've never gone.

thus my idea - i gave him a gift offer of 2 tickets to any concert of his choice, with the condition on myself that i wouldn't complain about how loud it was, and i'd even pretend to like it even if i didn't.

my cousin promptly yelled at me for being unromantic (thanks unnee).  but i don't get it - isn't love about sacrifice?  i thought it would be more meaningful that i was willing to do something that i probably wouldn't enjoy, just because it would make him happy. 

in any event, when i presented said gift, his response was interesting.  he thought it was thoughtful, yes, but then he said something along the lines of "well, when i was single, i wanted to go to concerts and meet people and be in a crowded place and all that.  i kind of don't need that anymore".

huh.

maybe pastor danny was right ... he said to us the other day that for most men, when they get married, all or most of their emotional and social needs are met by their wives.  (the reverse is apparently not necessarily true, which is why women need to have friends outside of their spouse).  but i suppose that makes sense why guys tend to fall off the face of the earth when they start dating or get married...

anyways, i hope he picks a good concert. 

t-minus 4 days till greece! 

welcome to the party

"hello, IT band, welcome to the party" -daja

i found this statement hilarious last night during an impromptu poomsae workout - whilst we were in the midst of some strenuous sidekick stretching drills.  the new way of practicing poomsae has definitely changed my course of tkd training - namely, with my joints and muscles in mind rather than forcing them to perform and nursing injuries later.  if only i knew then what i know now ... could have saved myself extensive PT bills. 

that being said, i still find poomsae to be a poor substitute for sparring training.  it's not that it isn't difficult, because i'm discovering a billion little muscles that i never knew i didn't have - but it's just not...the same.  i wouldn't call it the "poor man's sparring" because by nature, poomsae athletes tend to be the more intelligent/technical/educated/analytical than the sparring crowd.  that would be a misnomer for sure.  but in the context of the thrill and satisfaction and enjoyment?  definitely pales in comparison.  hitting a great sidekick is really no substitute for hitting a great badachagi on an opponent.  and this sheer difference makes it so much harder to motivate myself to train hard for it, particularly if i'm self-training. 

i realized the other night that it really just comes down to adrenaline.  coupled with the current books i'm reading (brain rules and drop dead healthy) - i realize how much of my life and the busy-ness i was able to maintain was linked to the sheer amount of endorphins and adrenaline i got from the 2-6 hours of intense training every day. 

aside from the extreme weight gain (to which even my love of my couch has now looked in the mirror and put its proverbial foot down), i've noticed lately that i'm always tired, and generally have a dull headache.  i attributed it at first to al's sleep apnea and the fact that being married and having a roommate has changed my otherwise predictable lifestyle and made it more busy.  (the only time i get a good night's sleep is when i'm travelling for work and he's not around, sadly).  but i realized more recently that part of it is a lack of endorphins since i retired from sparring.  makes sense, it's a drug, albeit a natural one, and i effectively cut my supply short in favor of the couch (though in its defense, that couch is really comfy and i work a lot). 

ever since al hit the crunch time of the end of the year, i've found myself reverting to my single life:  work till evening, head to the dojang, work out till late, come home and eat something and veg for an hour in front of the tv and sleep.  and while my body is sore most of the time, i think my headaches have subsided a bit and my mood is generally better.  go figure.

i also appear to be unmotivated without clear goals, mostly centered around some sort of competition.  i knew this about myself, but perhaps not how deeply it permeated ... but i really function better with less options. 

anyways back to the orig thought ... my IT band has always been tight, it only took me about 5 years of wrenching it to figure out what it was.  hopefully this will be a good poomsae year, with all these trips to bos and cross training, i hope it also heals instead of hurting my already battered joints. 

insensitive

After you get married, the first question people ask you is "how's married life?"  For which there isn't really a good pithy answer - I mean, I sort of go with the "can't complain...or I CAN complain but I won't" - which usually elicits a laugh and is vague enough to feel like the question was answered but not specific enough to be personal or continue conversation in that direction. 

The second question is always "so...any good news?" (as a euphemism for "are you pregnant?") 

I find it deeply annoying that "good news" equals pregnancy - I mean, it's good news in a sense, and how blessed are those who can get pregnant easily - but realistically, it's also the end of your life as you know it, and the beginning of a lot of stress and severe financial burden.  Not to mention 9 months of varying discomfort and an excrutiating torturous finale.  (If my future child or children ever find this blog, just a disclaimer not to take any of this personally - in fact this should be proof of how much I love you because bringing you into existenc was a long and sucky process.  You can thank me later - I love vacations on the beach - no flowers please.)

That being said, I think it's highly insensitive to ask about pregnancies.  Not that I'm pregnant.  But I know a lot of people who are, and a lot of people who'd like to be.  And a lot of people who had or are having trouble. 

It's like ... why would you ask a single girl when she's getting married?  Or how things are going on the dating front?  Unless you're a close friend, I don't think there's much right to ask such things.  It's like asking someone what their salary is, or what a student scored on his/her SAT's.  Or how much you weigh.  (I personally don't mind divulging my weight, but apparently others do). 

Here's my litmus:  if we're not close enough that I know either your salary, your test scores, or your true weight - then I'm not going to ask someone if they're pregnant.  I mean seriously, I was getting really annoyed for my friends who were trying to get prego and couldn't, but were constantly getting asked. 

As for my parents I just told them that the more they asked, the less I was inclined.  Since I've been known to spite them (reference the standing threat to marry a white guy if they kept pestering me about getting married), they've backed off.

Speaking of which - that irked me to no end as well.  When I was single, my parents would constantly harass me about dating.  As if I was slamming the door in the faces of the suitors lined up at my doorstep to court me.  Please.  The constant reminders were so unhelpful - sheez they're lucky I got married at all. 

Anyhow, that would be the peeve of the day.  Seriously people - a little noonchi please. 

That being said, I've also realized that along with seasonal affectedness, I have workout withdrawal that borders on uselessness.  I forget that endorphins give you a high - and apparently just how much of my nonstop life was dependent on those workouts in order to have enough energy to get thru everything else.  Who would've thought?  But there's just nothing like that feeling of dripping with sweat and knowing you have no energy left ... or rather, nothing like the feeling AFTER that when you can stop and just let the sweat drip and feel everything burn.  Hopefully the new jump rope workout on Thursdays will bring some of that back ... it's a little sad how we can't do everything we used to do, but fun to have dodo back in the dj.