grasping

Lately I've had a rush of memories just coming back to me. They've been refreshing at first - flashbacks of different moments of my life. Good memories, bad memories, I've been having the whole lot... and a lot of nostalgia along the way. But every memory that I have... something always bothers me... something's always missing... what is it?

I leave our apartment and walk along a path with my sister. We are walking to the convenience store to buy some candy. I have a few coins in my pocket, my sister has a tiny purse of coins. Maybe 2000 won in all, enough to buy a few pieces of candy.

We cross an alley. A large truck stopped just to our right. Cling! Clang! My sister drops her coins. Just four years old, she gets on her knees to pick them up. The truck starts moving.

Okay, stop. I can't recall the memory vividly. I remember most of the details, and I remember how I felt, but I can't actually feel the emotions that I felt at that time. I get frustrated, I am unable to remember that which makes the memory whole. I can't feel the panic, I can only know that I felt it. Watching a six-year old me in a black-and-white film. And I want to be the six-year-old me again.

It's been in my brain for twelve years, yet never have I really experienced that moment again. An almost haunting memory, an illusion that deceives me when it appears every now and then. And then there are the millions of other memories...

It's like reaching out to touch fog, to touch clouds. It seems so real and tangible, yet no matter how much I grasp I can never get at it. Just wisps. Sometimes I just wish I could re-experience my life over again. I want to know what I felt, I want to take a walk in my own shoes.

I'm wishing for too much.

James is here!

So James is now here, sleeping on my bed (while I study/use the computer). Yesterday we went to NYC. Saw Little Italy and Chinatown, Ground Zero, Wall Street, Times Square, Rockefeller Center and NYC's glamorous 5th Ave., Central Park, and the Statue of Liberty (from the Staten Island ferry). We opted to skip the Empire State Building, because we didn't have enough time. But the trip was pretty sweet.

The only thing is, the bus we took was sketch-tastic. It went from the Chinatown in Philly to the Chinatown in NYC... and they were really disorganized. We just barely found the place to board to head back to Philly... it was some random street corner in Chinatown. And they kept shouting at us to go on one bus, while some other people would tell us to get another bus... I almost had a heart attack. But anyways.

James and I are going to grab a Philly cheesesteak sometime later today.

Disillusionment, disenchantment, disappointment

It's a Monday. For most it would be the worst day of the week... for me it just feels like another day. No better, no worse, no different.

That's the general feeling that's been overwhelming me - and one of the only feelings that I have deeply felt in a while. These days I just feel... hollow, empty, even indifferent. I feel like everything I do, anything I do, is devoid of real happiness, real sadness, real anything. I might play Ultimate, do well on an exam or project, laugh at a joke, whatever. But these temporary feelings, I feel, are adding up to nothing. I'm sleepwalking through my life - weeks fly by, and I cannot point to any single event or anything that distinguished that week from any others. Where is the passion in everything, the real emotions, that I felt during my last year of high school, and during the summer?

Why is this happening? Maybe it's just that I don't have enough time to enjoy anything without worrying about that lab report or essay due the next day. Maybe it's just that I don't have many really close friends, just some good friends and some acquaintances - I don't share any deep connections with anyone here. Maybe it's the East Coast life... always busy, hectic. Maybe it's just life in the city. Or maybe it's just how college is... I don't quite know. Maybe my life is colorless. I do homework like a robot, go to bed at around 3, eat really bland and nasty food at the dining hall, think on a day-to-day basis only. But SOMEONE wake me up. Perhaps, in a metaphorical sense, my alarm clock died on me.

.....................

I joined our dorm's intramural men's volleyball team a few weeks ago. It's one of the things that actually brings me joy these days - even more so (much more so) than Ultimate right now. We are 1-1 against other dorms, and we have another game in a few hours. Ultimate is just drab these days. Our fields suck, my playing sucks as well, and I'm not in shape. All in all a very bad combination. Our last tournament got canceled due to poor field conditions.

And another thing I've noticed - I really miss Korea. Everything about it - people, culture, food, whatever... anything and everything I have come to associate with my experiences in Korea. I think I miss it more than Eugene, which is really a testament to how much I miss Korea, not how much I don't miss Eugene. Maybe it's that I haven't eaten enough Korean since I've been here.

Also, I'm getting this seething hatred of Princeton. Penn's biggest rival is Princeton, so you could say it's natural for me to get this feeling. Our football team beat their team this weekend 7-0, woot. Hey Princeton, what's so good about you anyways? The Princeton Review is located in your city, and they ranked you #1. How rigged is that??? Also, you are in NJ, which is basically the biggest petroleum- and chemical-refining wasteland in the country. And you are a bunch of stuck-up brats who think they're royalty... why don't you just change your name to "Kington"?

Whoa, I got carried away there.

I got to spend the weekend with my mom, when she came for Parents' Weekend. We didn't actually do too much - much of the time I was preoccupied with studying and homework. And we tried to watch the Duck game on TV (it was supposed to be broadcast nationally on ESPN), but our hotel decided to be an ass and didn't get ESPN at the time. So we walked over to my dorm and tried to watch it, but ESPN was showing a Cincy-South Florida game that no one cared about. So we missed the first 1.5 quarters of the Duck game. The East Coast really blows sometimes. But in any case, I get another visitor this week - James! I'll have to spend virtually every minute of every day this week doing homework and studying, but it's well worth it.

I think that's all I have to say. (Yeah I know... finally, right?) Sorry that I write so much, and I'm also sorry if my posts suck. But you gotta understand that this blog is the canvas on which I paint my life. Too bad it's bleeding black and gray.

Tired tired tired

So it's a Friday night and I'm doing homework (working on my research paper on international development, rather). Sigh.

My trip to NYC was pretty fun, but very tiring. We went and saw Ground Zero, Wall Street, Times Square, Central Park, and Yankee Stadium. And we passed by Madison Square Garden, and saw the Empire State Building and the Liberty of Statue from afar. But man it was tiring! On the day, my roommate Luke and I must have walked about 200 blocks. (70 of that was to and from the bus station in central Philly.) I'm too lazy to put pics up, but maybe I'll get around to it at some point.

NYC was way bigger than Philadelphia. There were tall buildings everywhere, so that vast swaths of the city were blanketed in shadow. Fruitwise, comparing NYC to Philly is like comparing apples to oranges. And then Philadelphia compared to Eugene is like an orange to a grape. ... To make this more accurate, you have to remember that NYC is a big apple (get it?). And then Philadelphia is a mandarin orange, which is smaller than normal oranges. And Eugene is... a raisin. All shriveled up compared to these cities. (To those who love Eugene but hate raisins, I'm sorry.)

I know, that analogy was horrendous.

Anyways, I have a lot of homework/other work this weekend, and I'm not happy. And I have to find a costume for a character in Marvel v. Capcom for an Ultimate tournament next weekend. Not happy. And it's still frickin hot here! I know the great majority of you readers out there cannot empathize, because you are shivering and blow-drying your feet, perhaps getting pelted by hail. But heck, I sweat myself to sleep. Awesome.

Anyways, the one thing I'm getting really pumped about is Ultimate. Not particularly my playing, nor the conditions of the field we practice on (it's going to be waterlogged after the sort of rain that just came down). Just the team. I feel like we have a pretty good team, and the region we play in is not that strong, so there's a good chance we can make it to Nationals in May! I'm going to do my best to get us there.

New York! And some pictures.

Yeah! I'm taking the bus up to NYC tomorrow with my roommate Luke. I haven't been to the city, but he's been there five times, so we shan't get lost. We're planning to hit up downtown, midtown, and uptown, so I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures. Speaking of which...

I've decided to take more pictures with my phone, so that you can actually see for yourself what the heck is going on in my life. So here are some pictures...

A view of the Schuylkill River. Halfway between campus and downtown.

People doing the Macarena on the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This museum is the one with Rocky on the (outside) stairs (or so they say, I never watched the Rocky movies). Also, did you know that Penn spends the most of any U.S. university on orientation stuff? No wonder tuition costs so freakin much. The picture was taken a while ago, obviously.

My biology lecture. We had a guest speaker on that day.

Locust Walk on a lazy Friday afternoon. I take Locust Walk every day of the week to get somewhere, whether to get to classes or to head to the Commons to eat. It's usually a lot busier than the picture shows.

The Upper Quad gate (yeah I know, crappy picture, I took it while walking). Unfortunately I don't live in the quad.

Just some thoughts and happenings

It's a Sunday night, and I should be studying/doing homework like mad. I am so behind, and possibly seriously screwed for midterms, and my research project. But ah well!

And it's still so freakin hot here! Mid-80s. I don't think it's dipped below 75 since I got here in late August. BUT it's supposed to cool down to low 60s this weekend! And this weekend is fall break! Booyizzle!

I went to church today... for the first time since arriving at Penn. The church was actually a university branch of Grace Covenant Church, whose main line is located further off (there is also a branch at Temple University). And it just felt really good to be in church again. After being away from a place of worship for so long, I just felt an overwhelming sense of relief wash over me as worship started, almost to the point where I teared up. My faith had never been completely solid until the mission trip, and now I feel like I can't lose it. So going to church today was a really good experience.

So about the church. Service was located in a small auditorium-like room underneath a Penn building, and there were a LOT of people. And mostly Asian at that, which was a change of pace. So many Korean and Chinese people! (I do believe that there are few Japanese Christians; even in Japan Christianity does not hold much sway - most practice Shintoism.) The worship and hymns were alright, but I ended up almost screaming the worship songs because of 1) the loud instrumental, and 2) the masses of people doing just what I was doing. I miss the feeling of singing hymns in small groups, where the worship music just sounds more... beautiful, especially when the occasional harmony presents itself.

The pastor was a hoot. I say that in a semi-good way, because he was possibly the funniest religious man I have ever heard preach. I had a comedian preaching to me today about marriage and relationships (this is not meant to be demeaning). I mentioned that it was only semi-good, because the comedy seemed to dilute the meaning of the message for me. And the sermon went WAY too long, to the point where I got restless and started fidgeting. I'm going to try out some other churches in the area. Good thing there is a bevy of churches in the area.

If you want to know about the rest of my day, here it is. I soon thereafter went to a biology review session, where students basically asked the professor questions. (This was the boring one of my two biology professors - the other is a quirky British guy who emphasizes the superiority of England to the U.S.) I didn't really get anything out of it, so I just left. Then I went to the gym, where I witnessed an abso-frickin-lutely cult-like ARMY of people running in place, eyes glued to televisions on the wall. It was pretty mind-blowing. I decided against working out my lower body.

I'm going to study. And maybe later get my ass kicked at ping pong. I have like a 1-13 record against this one guy from LA, and I'm set to play him again tonight.

Into October

We're into October. It's almost been an entire MONTH of school already for me, which just seems insane. I'm bracing for bio and calc midterms, which are next week...

The Penn Ultimate team traveled to Penn St. last week for the Penn State Fall Phling tournament. It was fun... and tiring. We stayed in a cabin thirty minutes from the fields, and it was in the middle of the woods. It was really dense forest, and it looked like the kind of place where you would expect a serial killer to pop out and chop your head off. (It was probably the deciduous trees... if you think about it, you wouldn't really expect a serial killer in a coniferous forest. Maybe a big bear.) OH and another thing, the dude who was driving our car ran over a live deer. It had already been hit, and it was laying on the road. The dude didn't see it until it was too late, and at that point the deer RAISED ITS HEAD, and a loud 'crunch' was soon both heard and felt under the car. It was the most traumatic experience ever (at least in terms of animal-related happenings). The next morning we took the same road to the fields, and there was a disgusting mess on the road.

Oh, by the way, we won the tournament. We were playing against mostly teams we were expected to beat. But we did beat Edinboro, which (according to the UPA) was ranked way above us. So, awesome. In our first game against Haverford, I got two handblocks and a layout Callahan (yeah I know, when does that ever happen to me???). But the Callahan was caused by a floaty throw by a Haverford handler, and I just laid out for it as if I was on offense.

And we're supposed to be scrimmaging against Princeton this weekend. (Doesn't that just sound weird? I'm going to play Ultimate against Princeton. What??? It just seems unreal, because the Ivy League is not just a faraway concept any more, it's a reality. I actually still get surprised when someone reminds me that I'm going to school in the Ivy League.)

Anyhow, my biology class is causing me a lot of stress these days. Too much work! And I feel like I should be reading everything that is either assigned or recommended, so that I am as ready as possible for my midterms. I think part of that is caused by the perfectionist in me who wants everything to be complete - for my knowledge of this stuff to be really comprehensive. Bleh. And I'm getting pretty anxious because only 20% of all students can get an A with the curve... so I've got to be really ready for this exam, because most of the other students here will be.

And I'm really happy that I didn't get into Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. Penn, unlike those schools, doesn't have that too-good mentality, which is definitely a good thing. There aren't (many) snobs here. The only school that I would still like to go to more than Penn is... Stanford. It's on the West Coast, and has a bomb-shizzle Ultimate team...