plus one's

only single people ask if they can bring a date to a wedding. i know that sounds inherently obvious since married people by nature already have a date built-in. but i realized (and repented for the times i did this too) that people who have never had to plan for and pay for a wedding HAVE NO IDEA what an imposition it is to ask to bring a bf/gf. i think when i was dating david-the-douche, i was really excited to actually have someone to be at a wedding with and i asked my friends if i could bring a date. i got smacked down pretty good - along the tune of "you've been dating this guy for a month and you want to bring him to my WEDDING??"

so i've been there too - young and stupid and having no idea what a show these circuses are. today i had about 5 people ask me if they could bring their significant others. to which i had to say no, though in my head i'm thinking - if you're under 25 the probability that you'll end up with this person for life is pretty slim, and the chances of a horrible breakup are much larger, therefore you'll probably look back on my wedding day and only remember this person ...

i also had someone declare that they were bringing their kids and they'd sit them on their laps. now that was awkward - despite the many reiterations that kids outside the wedding party were not invited, this just brought up intense awkwardness in having to actually be blunt about saying no. which was pretty hard bc i love those kids ... but i could just see the family drama unfurl if i was suddenly inviting some kids but not all kids ... sigh.

the goal of only offending half the people at our wedding doesn't look as much like a slam dunk as it used to ... but i guess there are still 3 months left to figure those details out. well, less than 3 months. eep!

so it begins...

alan: hey you remember that one seinfeld episode?

me: you mean the one where george's fiancee dies from licking all the wedding invitations?

alan: yeah...

me: hrmm, maybe i should get a sponge...


invitations - done. first round - out the door. let the madness begin.

crazy may

t-minus 3 months and change - after a few weeks of relative calm, it appears that things are about to get hectic again, and soon. well, either that or the trepidation over the land as my mom prepares to come back here is just creating an overlay of tension as everyone braces themselves.

i seriously envy people who enjoy spending time with their mothers. i was watching friends the other day, when monica goes nuts about how her mother is always picking on her and just makes her tense.

anyways. may is turning out to be quite crazy - with kids finishing up school and flipping out about finals (i was tutoring straight after work till 11pm last night - actually falling asleep while staring at math problems), poomsae trials suddenly having been moved up and only getting a week to practice pairs with scott after he comes back from school, softball season in full swing (quite literally), the engagement shoot (and all the hair and makeup hoopla that goes along with all that nonsense), and my mom coming to town (at absolutely the busiest time of the season - but i suppose it would be equally crazy/inconvenient whenever she decided to come). yep, may is offically crazy.

the food tasting was this past week, and i have to say - food is food. i still stand by my opinion that wedding food is all pretty good and unless it's really bad, it's all the same. except that the coconut shrimp really was like a mounds bar without the chocolate. i've never been a fan of coconut, but even alan didn't like that one. regardless, tasting is done, and i guess we have to finalize our menu at some point soon.

my dress arrived last night, in a box so normal sized i would have thought it was the legos i had ordered for alan. (yes, he likes to play with legos. as do i.) i find it amazing they can stuff a wedding dress in there without it getting massively crushed - but i guess that's what all the layers are supposed to do - spring back. i called up some tailor someone recommended, got a quote, made an appt, and done. hopefully this'll be quick. she told me to bring my shoes, which had me a bit confused because i'm not sure if anyone's going to throw a fit about my plan to wear flip flops and force me to get real shoes. but whatever...unnee is bringing i-man to the alterations session so i figure even if my mom drives me nuts, i'll have some comic relief. i miss him.

otherwise, just waiting for the invites to come back so we can mail them out and the madness can start up again with guestlist modifications and such. started a new idea with programs, this should be fun. the favors arrived, that was fun too.

but first thing's first - try not to lose temper with mom this weekend / want to jump off bridge, set the flowers, send the invites, then practice like a madwoman for poomsae trials, compete, hopefully win, and then focus on looking like a girl (yuck) for engagement photos - and then breathe. yeehaw. and that's may in a nutshell.

groupons

all the hubbub over groupons and livingsocial etc has been a fad that i've actually embraced.

one that i got recently was $35 for $100 of services - which if all goes to plan i'll use to make our wedding albums. yay! i was actually pleasantly surprised to discover this new alternative, since most photobook sites don't offer nicer options for fancy albums, and photographers charge upwards of thousands of dollars for wedding albums. plus i like making albums =)

in other online shopping woes, my backpack is on a the verge of breaking the strap, and it turns out that it was discontinued a couple years ago and it's impossible to find it anymore. not even on ebay. sad =( they've come out with a new version of it, but i really liked the old one ...

the 2 church debate still goes on. this weekend - 2 easter services back to back. if they didn't conflict we'd be at 2 good fridays too ...

bucket dump

after the 4-5 mile hilly run on sat and the 4 hours of poomsae seminar-ing on sun - my legs feel like jelly. jelly with bits of pain interspersed. philly was a pretty smooth drive, though getting in and out of the city is always ridiculous. now that i think about it ... probably worth it to take a bus next time.

mit won the cup this year, which was pretty awesome. i got there just in time to catch the men's b team finals, what a nailbiter. it's funny, i don't know most of the kids anymore, save the few i met at the reunion weekend last fall, and the alums who have stuck around. dan gave me a quick introduction after his team speech and suddenly i see two black heads go WHOOSH - haha my korean boys and their "noonim!" make me laugh every time. it makes me feel old but honored, all at the same time. they're so cute though - sometimes i just love being korean.

al makes a valiant attempt to be good to my parents - i have to say, it's impressive. i think he had a grand plan to open up 2 google translate windows, and just count on typing/reading fast - but the fact that he'll voluntarily call my parents is noteworthy in my book. (i wonder if this means i can call them less...) =)

a little stretched

i had a moment of drowning today, it was brief but perhaps all the more effective since it's spring break and most of my students are away so i thought i'd have nothing to do. (ok with a wedding, there's always something to do. or 10 somethings).

so for one there's poomsae trials, fast approaching - i just found out the schedule today and started thinking about the logistics of hotels and how to get there, etc. i have to say, it gets slightly annoying that people just expect me to plan these things. sigh. but that was one thing. i went to the dojang last night and kicked around for 2 hours, which was good to get back into things .. i can definitely feel that i'm getting old, though, my legs take forever to recover and my knees just can't take the pounding they used to.

on a similar note, i had all these requests lately for coaching, which is all well and good and i miss working with kids - but i forgot how much work it was scheduling, answering parents' questions, etc. oy.

i just figured out how to put our guestlists into our website (which btw has terrible user interface for web management) but it involved way too much manual entry. we keep meaning to sit down and do registries but in the end, i just end up doing them. which is kind of ironic considering that he's the one who cooks, so theoretically he should be the one to pick what goes in the kitchen. the other irony is that the one item we desperately need is a set of cooking knives - but i can't put it on my registry because of some korean thing where you can't give or receive knives from another person. the last time my mom bought me a knife, she made me give her a dollar so that technically i bought it off of her. a little silly if you ask me, but hey, i didn't make it up.

my brilliant idea to give the category of wedding flowers to my mom in order to give her something to do/feel important is backfiring - now she's sending me long emails every day. in korean. with things bolded and in red. huh.

for her birthday i gave my niece a choice of a master class violin lesson with my virtuoso friend and dinner (what we've done for the past 2 yrs) or a sleepover in the city at my new apt and hanging out in the city. she sent me a thank you card yesterday with her decision - which was that she wanted BOTH. wonderful. alan thought it was hilariously gutsy. and when i think about it, i should be so lucky that she wants to spend so much time with me. but looking at my insane calendar, i couldn't figure out where i was going to schedule in one outing, much less two!

oh yes, and softball season is upon us. i was recruited to play on some co-ed team starting late april - and they said they had practices. whaaaaat? this is obviously going to require more skill than i have. i'm a little nervous that i'm going to drag the team down - apparently the girl i'm replacing was pretty good. uh oh. but i'm pretty excited as well - i love team sports. joy softball in jersey is gonna start up soon as well, i'd be excited about that if i wasn't confused about whether manhattan should form its own team (and whether i could find someone to take the lead on that one).

throw into the mix that we're theoretically going to japan this summer, whenever they get their nuclear business in order. the show must go on, and this turbine isn't going to build itself...

cake topper

was toying (no pun intended) with this cake topper idea, since al and i are both so into legos...though given the price of it ($79 - what?!?!) i was wondering how hard it would be to make our own...

haha, or whether it'd be totally tacky and we should scrap it altogether.

rolling admissions

after much frustration over the save the dates and certain peoples' inability to respond with their addresses (or respond to their emails, period) - i had a brilliant idea (which alan, being the nice one, vetoed)...

rolling admissions!

see, i figured we could save ourselves a whole lot of trouble with this whole A-list B-list C-list probability of who will say yes or no and who will be offended they're not invited, etc ... by just sending out invitations to everyone and accepting the first 250 people who rsvp. and then we'd rank the people who came in after that and make a waitlist, so that when people changed their minds, we could fill those slots.

i thought it was genius. i mean, the people who really want to come to the wedding will surely committ first, and make their arrangements to be there. no matter how close we think we are to certain friends - well, if they can't even respond to give us their address, then why should we hunt them down to get them to come to our wedding?

i think it makes perfect sense. =)

in other news - i love my MOH. al was blown away at the torrent of details when we met up with her this weekend to do a status update and action item moving forwards. haha i think he thinks i'm just abnormal in my organizational tendencies - little did he see what could happen when 2 of us get together. but holy sheezmabobbers, carol is not only super positive and encouraging, but she's got checklists on top of my checklists and even brought me magazines to flip through to see what colors and hair nonsense i liked. if there was a MOH of the year, i'd write her a rec.

we booked the dj and the hair/makeup people. i guess it's weird but i was far more excited that they could airbrush my hand and make my scar go away than what they were gonna do to my face.

next on the list - finalizing invitations and getting started on these centerpiece things...

found my wedding shoes

it's shockingly difficult to find white athletic flip flops - but after much searching, ebay had a pair exactly in my size.

my goal is to check off one wedding item per day. well, at least one.

booked the other honeymoon flights (tahiti packages only leave out of lax, so we had to get ourselves ax the country at additional cost - boo). however, i feel super savvy because i was able to use up the ff miles i've been saving all these years and score us business class nonstop flights from nyc to lax both ways - for a pretty decent redemption value too! yay for booking early - though aa recently bumped me down from platinum to gold so that was a slap in the face. and with the recent happenings in japan, it looks doubtful that we'll be going over there as much as we'd originally planned for this year.

but as with most things honeymoon, we're adhering to people's advice to splurge now bc we'll never splurge again. it boggles my mind how much this bungalow costs per night, but b&j say it was totally worth it ... and well, it's nonrefundable so there's no turning back now!

wedding efficiency

being an efficient wedding planner is turning out to be somewhat of an oxymoron. though i'm sure that in the grand scheme of things, our planning is relatively smooth and quick - i realize that my high expectations of efficiency in any sort of process ... haha, well, are very high. what a way to test my patience, God, thanks. haha.

on the whole, i'm enjoying the process - mostly because i love planning. that being said, it's been stressful too (probably more for alan than me). he's been pulling his weight and then some, which i totally appreciate - i guess this process has been good to figure out we operate under an immense taskload. i have to say, this partnership thing is pretty awesome. and not just because i tell him what to do, and then he does it. (though ... that's most of it) =) google docs is my new bff.

the venue came together pretty quickly, i had taken c's starter list of venues, and then went online to search for all possible options based on pictures on websites. we made a spreadsheet where i'd enter in the contact info of all the places i thought were worth considering, and then he'd call them to get info on availability and pricing. (poor guy must've called 20 places or so). but as most of our friends say, he's the nicer half, so it's much better to send him to do the talking. from there we narrowed it down to 7 places that were available and in our price range - and we visited them, 6 of them in 2 days. it was pretty hairy, but in a way good to do them back to back and get a real comparison.

the third place we saw ended up being our winner - i liked the coordinator right away (al thought his previous job working for espn was totally obvious) - maybe that's why i liked him. regardless, he knew his grounds well and he knew how to sell his services without feeling greasy.

we ended up going to all of our other appointments just because we had set them up - and because we wanted all the information on possible dates and prices. but at the end of the day - like most of my decisions - it was made on gut. it's funny, i actually didn't have a great idea of what i wanted, but as eugy tells me, sometimes it's just as beneficial to know what you DON'T like. (and i do have definite opinions on things i don't like!)

the dress - probably the least important part to me about the wedding, since if i had it my way i'd just get married in my dobok. or jeans. (seriously - it's friday. why can't we have a casual friday wedding?) but i figured if i get to make 99% of the decisions about this thing, alan should get his one wish which is that i get all dressed out.

what expensive nonsense. however, eugy totally made it better by finding me less expensive alternatives, and for better or worse, i ended up buying the first dress i tried on. haha. i did end up trying on a whole bunch, and even went again the next day to another designer with mrs. sab - but in the end, i picked one dress from each session, compared them side by side ... and they were almost the exact same dress. same material, same cut, similar details ... yeah. so there you have it. looks fine to me, a little more elaborate than i'd like but not so much that it's weird. and best of all - half price. ordered it, and that was that.

the media - i had had my heart set on stillmotion since i saw them do b&c's wedding 2 years ago. i remember thinking "i have no idea who i'm gonna marry - but i know i'm gonna get these guys" so as soon as we started thinking about getting engaged, al was on the phone to canada, trying to figure out their availability. unfortunately the dollar plummetting, inflation, and wedding cinematography getting wildly popular has led to a price tag that's borderline obscene. but hey - the heart wants what it wants. i'm realizing thru all this wedding planning that i tend to go with my gut on my decisions, and find a way to justify it later. hrmm.

rounding out our media are the photographers - but that was fairly easy because they were the couple that i sgl'ed with last year. i guess i should have shopped around or compared, but ... in the end i think they do a nice job and they're cool people and our friends ... and it was one less thing to hem and haw over. done.

the food - well, the caterers are supposed to be good, but imho wedding food is wedding food. everyone can claim that theirs is awesome but barring being awful, i feel like no one's gonna care or remember. susie unnee begs to differ, as she thinks the food is the most important part - but honestly i just don't care as long as it's not bad i'm pretty sure it'll be fine. (that being said she took over the menu selection, so it's not even my choice anymore)

the wedding party - we'd had them selected for the past few months now, or at least 3 of the 4 we wanted to ask, each. i made a last minute game-time decision to make a switch (rather, i called her to tell her we got engaged and blurted out "will you be my bridesmaid?") but it all worked out in the end. i'm happy with my choices and everyone said yes! alan's guys totally don't know each other, but oh well - guys don't do that much anyhow. because sam wanted to be a bridesmaid so badly, i asked sab and mrs. sab if i could borrow dylan to be a jr. groomsman. i'm totally looking forward to seeing those two dance in together at the reception - they're so cute.

the invitations - thanks to bry's singapore connections, i think we're gonna get them printed and be able to chip away a teeny bit at our media fund. al's sister has been doing our designs and she's really talented - but she's also hard to read so i have no idea if she's happy to do it or annoyed. oh well. i think they're cute.

hair/makeup - another nonsensical expense, imho, but again, i realized if i care so much about the photos and video, i have to suffer thru this nonsense. (again, why life is unfair for women - guys just have to get a haircut and shave!) this is probably the #1 ridiculous expense i've found for the wedding - the amount of money they want to do my hair and slap chemicals on my face is crazy. but after much research, i settled on a korean company that has done a lot of my friends' weddings ... and just decided to grin and bear it. i really hope i don't come out looking like someone else - even if that someone else is really pretty.

the officiant - now THIS has surprisingly been the most difficult snafu of the wedding planning. who knew that for 2 people with extensive church backgrounds - it'd be so hard to find someone to marry us? eesh. it all started with his pastors, who said yes and then realized they have a scheduling conflict and will be on vacation that weekend. so then i wanted to be married by jc, my old iv staffworker and all around awesome dude. he said he could do the sermon - but he's not ordained, even though he's in ministry. sigh. so then we moved on to my senior pastor, who said yes, and then 2 days later the church administor points out that he's supposed to be leaving for honduras for a missions trip the day of our wedding. our assistant pastor is already performing another wedding. our other 2 pastors are not ordained.

yes, it's possible to go through 7 possible candidates and come up short to slap a wedding together. so as a backup, we have one of alan's friends - who is an ordained minister but younger than us and not himself married. on principle, we wanted to be married by someone who was married - but at this point it looks like yj may be doing the officiating while james does the ceremony. we shall see. pd actually wrote me back yesterday and said he would "make myself available!" since he doesn't like to leave before sunday for trips (totally heartwarming) - but this remains to be one thing left unchecked on my checklist for now...

the honeymoon - i had always had tahiti in the back of my mind, and since al didn't have a strong preference, once we decided to just bite the bullet in terms of the cost, he did a whole bunch of research (costco travel is apparently awesome) and we just booked it this week. another couple in our sg went to bora bora for their honeymoon and totally loved it, so we ended up booking at the same resort they stayed at. i'm really excited about the bungalows. =)

the favors - i know what i want. and i'm not going to post it here lest anyone is coming to the wedding ... but barring an issue with ordering or personalizing, it's pretty much checked off.

the music - this makes me uneasy because live musicians are unpredictable, but in general we decided on some people we wanted to include into our ceremony (who happen to have nice voices and/or piano skills) and that's that. he being musical took over this portion, and his friends are going to do a song. young was gracious enough to play piano for us for the ceremony, so ... done. since it's outdoors i didn't want to deal with instruments going out of tune and such, so no strings. as a sneak preview, we wanted our recessional to be the charlie brown theme song. a nice tribute to childhood, as well as something alan requested of the live pianist at the restaurant he took me to for our 3 month anniversary. (that pianist was really good, btw. as was the restaurant in florida. al is a pro with yelp). we picked our first dance song, and now the only other decision is whether to do a father/daughter and/or mother/son dance. i have mixed feelings about what our parents would like, because i feel like my mom will feel left out, but...hrmm.

the dj is al's realm - i find dj's to be like wedding food. you only notice them if they're bad. but this guy came highly recommended by our coordinator so hopefully he'll be cool. and as per gt's suggestion, you just give them a playlist and they play it. no sweet caroline or electric sliding at my wedding, that's all i have to say.

that's all i've got so far ... the list of things to do seems endless. i'm supposed to go research florists or something - i've been putting it off because i don't care about flowers. though i do want to see if i can incorporate throwing a football in for the bouquet toss - esp since i think the bouquet toss is really silly and demeaning to single girls.

t-minus 155 days (says theknot)

single-sensitive

in the 30 years of my life (yeah, admitting i'm 30) i have to say that one of the suckiest days of the year is valentine's day. even now, having someone to celebrate it with, i find it to be an overmarketed, overpriced, floral and hallmark holiday. (and that's bad if i say it, bc i love hallmark).

one thing that alan and i have vowed, being 2 people who have been single for almost our entire lives, is to be sensitive to singles around us. and i hope we remember that, even when the memories of being lonely and waiting around/getting rejected fade away.

it really bothers me when people flaunt their relationships, particularly in settings (uh, like small group) where there are a lot of singles - particularly older singles. that's just not cool.

aside from the fact that i'm not really into pda to begin with, alan has learned not to be offended when i elbow him or shrug him off when he puts his arm around me or wants to hold my hand sometimes. sometimes it's because i'm embarassed, but more often because i just don't feel the need to make other people more acutely aware that they're single.

we actually contemplating hanging out with our single friends on valentine's day instead of celebrating it - which i guess in restrospect we ended up doing inadvertantly because we went to the dojang and worked out. we did happen to go out on saturday and have a nice dinner and do some special things that he planned out (good job, dude) but really, who needs to know about all that stuff? certainly not facebook and all the pictures of roses and homemade dinners that girls post up. i'm happy for them, but i guess i just feel like it's a bit insensitive.

haha maybe i'm still a bitter single woman on the inside. some things are hard to let go of...=)

desert island

alan asked me what i would take to a desert island, if i was stuck on it for the rest of my life - assuming that food and shelter would be somehow attainable on the island.

he shot down my magical "internet connection" solution, by which i could stay connected to the outside world (and get myself off the island, perhaps with the assistance of google maps).

so my next best solution was ... tabasco sauce. figured, if there's enough edible substance to stay alive, may as well bring a contingency plan to make sure i can eat whatever there is to eat.

pet peeves

we shared our pet peeves in tlc last week and of course i blanked...

today i realized what my top pet peeve is...or some of the ones up there...

a) when people type words and extend them with the consonants instead of the vowels. ie. when you read it and it's not what the person would actually say. like "love ittttttttttt" no one would hold a "t" that long, that's just nonsense. (on a side note "helloooooo" is ok, bc you can actually say that.)

b) when people are grammatically incorrect just to be "cool". or the phrase "lol". i think it's just silly, though less so than "rofl", which again, very few people do....

c) when people spell things wrong in order to be trendy...unless it actually sounds like the word AND shortens it. like "u" for "you" or "tho" for "though". but the days of "kewl" for "cool" annoyed me so much...

so bored...

being crippled and cooped up at home is leaving me with a body sized print on the couch, and utter boredom.

of all the everyday things, showering is the most difficult thing by far. i ca't get my cast wet so i have to plastic baggy it, i have to keep my arm elevated above my heart so it's like a perpetual korean punishment, and washing your hair with one hand is shockingly difficult.

some math humor

interesting article

it's a little sad but it's actually fascinating to watch the roomba clean the apt by itself...

this vacation concept is a keeper

oh man, i don't know what i was doing all this time spending my vacation days on tournaments, getting hospitalized, and coming back all stressed out. i could sure get used to this vacation thing.

in short, we've been in thailand for about 4 days, and it's been a whirlwind of food (khao gin gai is my new favorite), family (alan has A LOT of family. they all seem to drink from the fountain of youth because they all look and act 10 yrs younger than they actually are) and fun stuff to do.

the highlight so far was the gibbon ziplining adventure in chonburi ... definitely the scariest and coolest thing ever. would recommend it to anyone who has control issues ... haha bc there's nothing you can do when you're thrown off a 50 m platform and soaring through the jungle on a zipline. probably good that i didn't look into it too closely with respect to my fear of heights before signing up. haha.

rent-a-child

early on in our relationship, al was overwhelmed by the love of ... my nieces and nephews. it was actually a pretty good litmus test as to whether he was a keeper ... kids can be good at sniffing out character.

in fact, i think the first notable instance was the first night he stayed over at my cousin's place - i woke up in the morning and went downstairs to the guest room to find him hanging with syd. now the kids are all great: friendly, affectionate, outgoing, and generally just used to being around a lot of people - but of the 3, syd is the hardest to crack. sam and i-man, they're kind of the same ... sam is super friendly and i-man is so doggone lovable and dispenses hugs indiscriminately. but syd - she's much more picky about who she warms up to, and she has a definite circle of ins and outs.

so the guest room downstairs has a tv mounted in the corner, and that's where the kids generally watch their saturday morning cartoons. apparently that day syd went in to find someone sleeping in that bed. al rolled over and sees her in front of him and says good morning. she then proceeds to run over and give him a big hug saying "i missed you!"

according to him, he melted. (haha. when he told me i was like...dude, did you just say "i melted??")

i love the kids and the kids love me ... but as time went on i would find that they loved him more. seriously, chopped liver over here. one time i decided to put it to the test. we came in the door at the same time, and i-man was in the computer room. i made sure to separate myself from al, maybe a few feet apart, and sure enough, when issac came running over to hug hello, he made a beeline straight to alan.

as time went on, we grew to have lots of good times with the kids, frequently getting mistaken for their parents. i'd almost always get smiles when taking issac grocery shopping and having ridiculous conversations with him, that people would comment on multiple occasions "your son is so cute!" and then i'd reply "thanks, he's not mine!"

one night, after some particularly cute incident, we started joking around that the chongs should start a rent-a-child program for couples who are having cold feet about having kids. the idea being that their kids are so endearing that you could take the most committment phobe curmudgeonly dude - and he'd buck up and start giving hugs and pony rides.

so here we are, the poster parents for the program:



as family, i guess you could say we get free rentals. or, uh, i guess you can call it free babysitting for the parents. =)

revenge of the claw

well, with surgery #4 coming 'round the corner ... i found this picture that someone took of me and scott this past summer. i had wanted to frame it for our hand surgeon for christmas, but just got my hands on it today. whoops. maybe later in the year... scott crushed his finger in a printing press maybe 4 years ago and dr. r had to emergency put his bone back together. yeah, it was pretty crazy. (i remember when maryann called me and i was like ... he did what?!?)

except then i became bff with dr. r after "the claw" (when he reconstructed my smashed up hand and nailed me up), "the claw returns" (popped the nails out), "the claw - the threequel" (lopped off the scar and cleaned out the scar tissue). seriously, orthopaedic surgery is like sterlized carpentry, it's really quite disturbing.

despite the fact that the claw is still ... a claw. this picture gives me a little hope that scott and i can still compete and look decent despite the injuries. well, his wasn't that big a deal in the end - for how badly he smashed the tip of his finger, you'd never be able to tell. that dr. r...miracle worker, he is.

i've had enough. this hand has been smashed, pulled, stretched, nailed, unnailed, scraped, sawn, cut, stitched, injected ... please God, can you just heal it? pretty please? with sugar on top? and molasses on the side?

as bummed as i was about this cyst, and as annoyed as i am that it keeps growing and bugging me ... i'm hoping that surgery #4 (aka "revenge of the claw") will heal it once and for all.

ちょっとできますよ。。。

日本語わちょっと難しいですねえ。。。

ひらがな尾書いていますけど。。。ひらがな尾書いてません。。。露マジ尾かいています。

ok so seriously - i feel like i'm cheating writing all this japanese because it looks like i know what i'm doing when in reality - not so much. i just discovered that in order to type in japanese, all you have to do is type in romaji (the english romanization of the japanese pronunciations) and the computer does it for you. what the heck?? eesh after all that practice getting good at typing in korean, and the japanese give me a cheating way.

the sheer gluttony that comes from biz trips is astounding. i wish i had brought some running shoes because i feel downright slothful. and perhaps i'm too simple at heart, but after a week of fancy meals which probably cost on the order of $200+ per head ... i'd be happy to have a bowl of noodles by myself and not have to have the same conversations over and over again. not that i disliked any of the people we met with ... just the formality of it all and the extension of "work" into lunches and dinners was just draining.

other than finally finally understanding what the heck we're doing (i swear, i need a whiteboard to understand things. i'm going to ask if i can order one and install it in my cube) japan came with some interesting observations.

-my boss thinks i'm really weird for eating curry for breakfast. i love the hotel breakfast in hitachi city ... they have a western and japanese spread, of which i totally go for salad, curry, miso soup, and various fishes and picked vegetables in the morning. why on earth would i eat runny scrambled eggs and cereal? but seriously, i could eat that curry every day for breakfast for the rest of my life. maybe with a little kimchi...

-japanese drugs - there was a commercial last night for what i assume was cold medicine ... or magical superpowers. it's kind of entertaining watching a commercial where you don't have a clue what they're talking about.

-twin beds in hotels? seriously?? my boss's feet must stick over the ends. what am i supposed to do with 2 twin beds? i actually stole the covers from the second bed because i was cold one of the nights ... i haven't slept in a twin bed since college.

-japanese toilet technology is beyond impressive. except now I want heated toilet seats at home...seriously.

-there are bikes everywhere - without locks on them. apparently theft is not a problem here

-food is less appetizing when its head is chopped off and put on the plate for presentation. i swear that fish was looking at me, and its head was the size of a small child's head.

-having a language barrier with the top researcher has resulted in a lot of drawing on the white board. move over english - math is the real universal language. except no one could draw the vectors straight enough that i could REALLY understand where exactly they were getting the sine equation from but...eh, i got the gist. even that was more than i thought i'd follow. sometimes it's depressing to realize just how much knowledge you've lost over the years.

-fake competancy is...fake. so between rosetta stone, 3 semesters in college, and this being my third trip to japan - i've developed some competancy at basic phrases, numbers, etc. it's really quite pathetic. but now i feel confident enough to try them out, at least at restaurants and while shopping. the problem is, when you're good at faking the beginnings of conversations...people start talking fast and having real conversations with you. and then you have to admit that you're lost and ask if they speak english. fail.

-i haven't slept more than 4 hours straight in a week. i hope this corrects itself when i get home...

year in review

revisiting the status of new year's resolutions for 2010:

1) return to the state of fitness i was in before i broke my hand (aka "return of the claw")

THIS HAS BEEN PRETTY BAD. MY LACK OF ATHLETICISM, STAMINA, AND THE SHEER FATNESS HAS BEEN DISAPPOINTING FOR MOST OF THIS YEAR. THOUGH I GUESS THE CLAW IS STILL HOLDING ME BACK. I PARTIALLY BLAME ALAN, SINCE HE HAS NOW REPLACED MY PREVIOUS BOYFRIEND, TAEKWONDO. (though to be fair, he treats me much better)

2) apply for (and if ambitious, take) my PE licensing exam

NO MOTIVATION WHATSOEVER. THOUGH I DID GET PROMOTED THIS YEAR SO TECHNICALLY I HAVE TO DO THIS BEFORE I CAN GET PROMOTED AGAIN ANYTIME IN THE FUTURE SINCE LEVEL 5'S HAVE TO HAVE A PE. YOU'D THINK THAT'D BE MOTIVATION...

3) keep all of my electronic devices. in recent history, i've managed to lose or have stolen: 2 phones, 1 camera, 1 ipod, 1 blackberry. very bad track record.

I CAN'T FIND MY SHUFFLE, BUT OTHERWISE I THINK EVERYTHING IS ACCOUNTED FOR.

4) finish my movie

DEFINITELY DROPPED THE BALL ON THIS ONE. DOH.

5) substantially outline/write draft of my book

SERIOUSLY DROPPED THE BALL HERE TOO.

6) learn how to put on my own makeup

THIS I'VE ACTUALLY DONE ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS ... WELL, ENOUGH TO NOT HAVE TO CALL SOMEONE AND HAVE THEM DO IT FOR ME BEFORE A WEDDING. I'M STILL WARY OF PUTTING SO MANY THINGS CLOSE TO MY EYEBALLS, AND NOT BEING ABLE TO RUB MY EYES FOR EXTENDED PERIODS OF TIME...EH BUT YOU GOTTA DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO.

7) learn how to play guitar

FAIL. WILL HAVE TO PUT BACK ON THE LIST.

8) pick the violin and piano back up, especially while i'm living with the chongs. play gwinston's canon with some degree of fluidity.

I PRACTICED VIOLIN FOR A GOOD MONTH OR SO IN PREPARATION FOR AN ORCHESTRA AUDITION. AND THEN I WENT AND PLAYED SO HORRIBLY IT WAS BEYOND EMBARASSING. ESPECIALLY SINCE I HAD TO AUDITION ON STAGE IN FRONT OF LIKE, 20 PEOPLE. DIDN'T HELP THAT THE WOMAN WHO WENT BEFORE ME WAS FREAKING AMAZING. IT WAS SAD. I WAS PRETTY BUMMED ABOUT BEING REJECTED UNTIL THE FALL SEMESTER HIT ME FULL BLAST AND I WAS DROWNING UNDER EVERYTHING ELSE AND HAD NO TIME TO BREATHE. THEN I WAS THANKFUL THAT AT LEAST THAT DECISION HAD BEEN MADE FOR ME.

9) prep and give the seminar series on inductive bible study

THIS ONE WAS ALMOST DONE, THOUGH I NEVER REALLY GOT THE GREEN LIGHT FROM CHURCH TO DO IT. BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY, FILLED MY SCHEDULE WITH OTHER THINGS SO I GUESS THIS WILL GET PUSHED TO LATER. THOUGH AL DID MENTION THAT IF I BECAME A MEMBER AT HIS CHURCH I'D BE WELCOME TO TEACH SUCH A SEMINAR. HRMM...

10) go on a blind date (fully anticipating this to be disastrous)

WELL DEPENDING ON WHAT YOU CALL BLIND, IT WAS, AS ANTICIPATED, DISASTROUS. (CAR TOWED, ALL THAT). THOUGH IT WAS ALSO EVENTUALLY WONDERFUL. SO I GUESS EVEN THOUGH I DIDN'T CHECK OFF MUCH ON THIS LIST ... I GOT THE MOST IMPT ONE. IRONICALLY, THIS RESOLUTION WAS INITIALLY TO BE DATING, BUT I THOUGHT THAT WAS TOO AMBITIOUS SO I SCALED IT DOWN TO GOING ON A BLIND DATE. CHECK AND CHECK.

11) take a road trip

I'M NOT SURE WHAT COUNTS AS A ROAD TRIP. I DID MAKE A FEW TRIPS TO BOSTON, AND ONE TO CT. THOUGH I WAS REALLY THINKING OF SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF DC OR MAINE. NOT SURE WHETHER TO GIVE CREDIT FOR THIS ONE...

12) go on a real vacation (ie. not for tournament purposes)

THAILAND, HERE WE COME! NO ATHLETIC ACTIVITY UNLESS I FEEL LIKE IT. SOUNDS GLORIOUS.

13) go out more (try to do something social at least once a week - as in a dinner or event that is not for explicit church or organizational purposes. frivolous and expendable only.)

THIS LASTED FOR AWHILE, AND THEN I STARTED DATING AND OUR SCHEDULES BECAME SO FULL THAT NOW WE JUST WANT TO BE COUCH POTATOES MOST OF THE TIME. WHICH WAS REALLY WHAT I WAS LIKE BEFORE. I JUST FORCED MYSELF TO GO OUT SO THAT I WOULD MEET PEOPLE.

14) NOT end up in the ER

TECHNICALLY I DID NOT END UP IN THE ER. THOUGH I DID HAVE SURGERY THIS YEAR, AND WILL HAVE ANOTHER ONE NEXT YEAR (THEREBY ALREADY BREAKING MY RESOLUTION #1 FOR 2011, WHICH WAS "DO NOT GET HOSPITALIZED") BOO...


all in all - not bad. maybe 50% or so, but more progress than previous years. will have to be more specific for next year...

i came to dance, dance, dance, dance...

yes i happen to be a glutton for pop music, but that song dynamitejust puts me in a good mood.

al and i came to an interesting realization last week. for context, he works for some ny financial risk management company, and like any other finance company in the city, there's a fancy schmancy holiday party at the end of the year. (he's not in finance, btw, he's a programmer). so being a dude, he was super excited about this party and the prospect that it was an excuse to make me dress up, wear impractical shoes that would make me want to chop my feet off, and throw some makeup on my face, etc.

so like the good gf i should be, i promised to go the 9 yards, which i must admit i despise less and less as time goes on. so we get to the venue and find that it's fancy of all fancies. (we immediately took a bet at how much it would cost per head to have a wedding reception there. $400, he hit it on the nose.) two floors, two open bars, cocktails, buffets, deejays, dance floor ... it was a wedding without the wedding.

his only wish was that i got all decked out to wow his coworkers, though really i think he just wanted me to wow him. not so hard when my general apparel consists of athletic wear or jeans. (keep the expectations low, people!) anyways, so i met his coworkers and their wives, who were pretty cool ... we ate a crazy amount of food which was delicious. and then we look over to this hubbub of people in plastic shades, epilepsy-inducing fake ipods that blinked fluorescent colors, and glow bracelets on the dance floor.

now, neither al nor i are dancers. i think up until now we were both the type to prefer to sit on the sides at weddings and generally avoiding dancing at all costs. at least, i was. i secretly don't mind, and perhaps sometimes enjoy dancing - but only by myself. in public, only at weddings of college friends. otherwise ... just generally not a fan. i was notorious at remnant for being the girl who wouldn't dance - though honestly much of that was induced by the fact that people labelled me as such. i don't mind dancing - i just don't like people watching me dance.

al has some similar sentiments, and though i find it amusing/endearing when he dances around my apt sometimes just to make me laugh (um, it looks normal, i don't see why he's self-conscious) ... apparently it's not his thing in public.

so i'm not sure what compelled me, maybe it was his coworker and his wife who got out there and looked like they were having fun - or the fact that there were old people out there (drunk) and clearly we couldn't look any more foolish than they ... or the fact that unlike him, i knew no one at this party and therefore had no shame. but i dragged him out to go dance with me. (one advantage of the impracticalities of dressing up is that i could probably ask him for anything. huh. i'll have to remember that.)

much to our surprise - it was really fun. somewhere in the course of the night he commented that dancing is actually fun when you have someone to dance with.

huh. i guess that's what it was. perhaps that's why i didn't like dancing before - because inevitably it gets awkward if you don't have a partner. you either have to make new friends with strangers, or hang out in a group (forming the inevitable circle) or something. in any event, we had a good time.

my feet paid for it afterwards, but he's a champion foot massager. i got lucky on that one.

the prom picture:



glad i finally got some use out of that dress. bought it on sale a few years ago and thought it looked nice and maybe i'd have an occasion to wear it one day. i think these are the only times al approves of my habit of buying things i don't need just because i found a fabulous deal. but rest assured - it was one fabulous deal.