my FIRST guitar string broke the other day while tuning my guitar. scared the hell out of me since i wasn’t expecting it. anyway, bought myself a set of

guitar strings and WOW!!! i never knew my guitar could sound so “bright” and just plain amazing. all this time i thought it was cause i sucked, but with a new set of strings… i can’t wait until i get better and so i can find out what this guitar can really do!

anyway, as i had mentioned in one of my previous posts, one of my new year resolution is to learn to paint… starting with oil cause that’s what uses… and i’m really hooked onto his stuff right now. my first oil paint class is this thursday. CAN’T WAIT!!!

i was in the bathroom of my parents house washing up for bed.

this is the first new years that i’m “celebrating” it by myself in a long long time.

kinda sucks the way 2007 played out. thought i’d have graduated by now… thought i had met future “mrs. choo”… thought i was going to get at least my blue belt in BJJ… thought i was going to check out san fran/napa valley.

it’s 2008 now… still not quite there in terms of graduating… future “mrs. choo” dumped my sorry ass… still a lousy white belt (in fact, i haven’t gone to class in such a long time that i’ll probably get submitted by anyone)… no san fran/napa valley.

just hoping i have a bit more of better luck in 2008.

guess it’s time for that annual new year resolution…

here it goes:

1. graduate graduate graduate

2. be more proficient with the guitar

3. learn to oil paint

4. get in the best shape of my life (look like georges st. pierre)

5. go skydiving

6. learn foreign language (spanish, italian, japanese)

7. learn to play the piano

8. go to church more consistently

9. find future mrs. choo

10. be happier

let’s see what kind of luck i have this year with the resolutions.

hope everyone has a great 2008!

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other

people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

—Marianne Williamson

who’d have thought that a stupid TV show like Will and Grace would leave me in such a state.

the gist of the show was Will at his dad’s funeral and being upset knowing that the last thing his dad had told him while he was still alive was “i wish you weren’t gay”… To Will, his dad was telling him “i wish you weren’t you”. later on in the show, as Will is talking to his mom in the laundry room, she tells him it’s not him being gay per se that upset his dad. it was Will being “secretive” about his life and barging in at random times with such big dramatic news. his parents had just wished he’d be more open with his emotions/feelings/etc. so they’d know who their son was and is…

i guess this episode really got to me because that is my relationship with my parents. i tell them what they need/want to hear, but otherwise, my life really is a big mystery to them. i don’t know. i definitely would like to have a more open relationship… not just with my parents… but with people in general. i don’t want to have any regrets… i never want to have to say… i wish i had a bit more time to tell them how i feel or what is in my heart.

it sucks though. haha… whenever a girl breaks up with me… i have the hardest time getting over it. the thought of not having them in my life is too much to bear at times… but in reality, they are nothing more than just another girl who broke my heart… who took me for granted… who took advantage of my kindness… my love.

if i handle break-ups with a random girl this poorly, i don’t know what kind of shape i’ll be in when my parents pass away. i’m kinda afraid to find out… i hope to God that my parents live many many many many many many many many many many more years…

anyway, i figure if these people can do it, no reason why i can’t get in shape. i guess i’ve been “trying” to get in shape for awhile now. problem with me is CONSISTENCY. i was getting in pretty “good” shape, but then with what happened a few months back… my life really went to shambles. i don’t understand why i had let my life get so out of control over this girl. anyway, trying to pick up the pieces again and hopefully things will turn around for the better in 2008.

i know the new year is still couple weeks away, but here are some of the things i hope to accomplish in 2008:

1. become more proficient with the guitar

2. learn to oil paint (more artistic in general)

3. go skydiving

4. graduate

5. learn and become more proficient in spanish, italian, and chinese

we’ll see how 2008 goes…

it’s been about 2 months now. i have to admit that i can’t believe it’s been 2 months already. the pain doesn’t seem so “raw” as much… but it still does bother me and i still do think about how/why everything happened. i blame her… i hate her… i despise her… but at the end of the day, i have only myself to blame. in a different life/world, where i don’t have my “issues”, i’d like to think that i’d have never got involved with her from the very beginning. all the “warning” signs were there… and yet… because of my need to feel “important”… “needed”… “complete”… my “savior” complex, i decided to take on the “challenge” of being there for her and show her that i’m not like her ex and that i’m an honest and sincere guy who will do everything to take care of her and to make her happy and as foolishly as this sounds, i really believed that things would have been “wonderful” and sometimes i still do.

maybe things do happen for a reason. maybe i’m suppose to learn that no “relationship” or any other materialistic good will compensate for the emptiness i feel sometimes. i guess this realization alone is much progress, but now i gotta figure out what the source of this emptiness is and what the solution is. it just sucks that i had to “lose” someone like her to come to this realization… honestly, i don’t know what keeps me stuck on her. at least with robin, the relationship had “meaning”… “significance”. i feel like because of her own personal issues (and mine)… i was short-changed and never really had a chance. i can only wonder… “what if”… and that’s what drives me insane i suppose. i have no say… there’s nothing i can do… i feel helpless. times like this i look at my parents… my mom recently told me a story about how she felt when she first moved to this country 20+ years ago. she told me she spent many showers crying and hating my dad for bringing her to this country and putting her through all the hardships… (i always wondered back then why my mom took so many showers…), but after 20 years in this country, my parents are still together and in love. sometimes i wish how they do it… it seems like every relationship i’ve been in.. when the going got tough, either she walks or i walk.

when it comes to relationship, now i feel “jaded”… what’s the point of getting involved with someone when it’ll only end in a disappointment? maybe i should just look for someone to “hook up” with and go from “hook up” to “hook up”… i don’t know. i just don’t want to put myself out there anymore… make myself vulnerable… and get hurt. i’m tired of being hurt…

but then i look at my parents… and i can’t but wonder… maybe there is still hope…

anyway, he gave me this lame excuse about how he had lent some money to his other friends and they never paid him back and how their friendship had deteriorated from that point forward.  i was hurt.  we literally grew up together.  he was the second “friend” that i had when i moved to US.  we played baseball together growing up… he slept over my house… i teased him when he got his tiny little dick circumcised at the tender age of 17.  we were best friends growing up.  anyway, i was hurt that he’d even think that i’d stiff him on the money.  if i had the money, i’d totally help him out.  this isn’t actually the first time that he’d let me down.  last time wasn’t about money… just a favor and he said no.

anyway, i respected his decision… until he started “lecturing” me how i should stop worrying my parents… how my dad calls him to see if he knows of anything else that i’m going through.   he can really shut the hell up.  he has no idea what kind of a relationship i have with my parents… he doesn’t know who i am… him and his damn baechu head…

anyway, yeah, i’m freakin annoyed now…

anyway, like i said, my mom calls me up EVERY halloween the past 10+ halloweens reminding me how i had been sick that day and she was so worried about me as i chased after my brother and chong trying to keep up with them going trick-or-treating around the apt complex that we all lived in.

she ends the conversation by saying how she misses when i was little… when i used to think that my parents couldn’t do anything wrong… when she’d be able to make me feel better with a kiss on the cheek and a hug…

i always roll my eyes when she does this to me. i tell her that i still think she’s an amazing mom and a hug/kiss from her does make me feel better… not to the same extent as it did when i was 8 i suppose.

i honestly have to admit, especially lately, that i do miss those days too. i miss where the only thing that i really had to worry about was whether i did my homework or not. i didn’t have to worry about anything (didn’t mean that i didn’t worry about stuff)… but compared to my worries now… everything seemed so trivial. i’m sure if robin reads this, she’d roll her eyes at me and get frustrated a bit. she always felt like i had a little growing up to do… and she was right. but lately i’m realizing that growing up is very VERY hard work. living by myself here in atlanta… 813 miles away from my parents… and even further from my brother. i’m quickly learning that growing up comes along with a LOT of responsibilities… i gotta remember to eat (at least twice a day)… not only remember to eat…. but find/make something to eat… as i don’t have my mom to cook for me anymore. i gotta remember to pay my bills/rent on time… or ruin my credit for 7 years. i gotta make money to pay these bills/rent… i gotta get a job so that i can make the money… i gotta remember to act like an adult… and when/if i ever do find that “right” woman for me… i’ll have to worry for her well-being/happiness… worry ways to keep her interested enough in the relationship so she wouldn’t leave and then have to deal with petrifying feeling of spending the rest of my life with one person… don’t even get me started about the responsibilites that come along with having kids… WHY DOES ANYONE WANT TO GROW UP… BETTER YET… HOW DO PEOPLE GROW UP AND MAKE IT WORK???

it really is a scary time. less than a year from now… i’ll be officially part of the “workforce”… i can no longer say that i’m still a student… even if i am 28. i’ll have to be an adult… like it or not. sometimes it terrifies me so much that i get a panic attack…

but at the end of the day… as much as i wish i was 8… i do realize that i have to grow up and be an adult. yeah… being an adult comes with SO MANY MORE worries/responsibilities… but i suppose there are benefits to being an adult. i can have a glass of cranberry juice with vodka at a bar legally (even if i still get carded cause i look like i’m 16)… i don’t have to get my parent’s permission to waste my money on something stupid… i can rent an apt… even buy a place of my own one day… i can date… fall in love… get married… enjoy the pleasures of sex… all legally. maybe growing up isn’t all that bad… scary as it may seem… i gotta do it anyway, so why not make the most of it right?

well… speaking of dating… falling in love… sex… any women out there interested in a fairly witty, highly sarcastic, immensely intelligent, dashingly charming 28 year old guy?