How the mind runs

Morning

So for the first time since I've been here, I went out for a morning run because I felt like a little fatty head (really I think gained like 2 pounds on my face) because a lack of exercise. I was debating it at first because I had a presentation today but when my alarm went off at 8:30, I was like "you can do it andrew!" so I put my basketball shorts on and grabbed my ipod and headed out. Here's a pic I took a little while ago.


First I started out pretty good and then after two minutes I was pretty winded. But I told myself that I would keep running until this song ended. But it was a song by Kim Walker and in my mind I was like, "frak! This is one of those prophetic songs!" But I did it and I ran all 5:16 of the song. I ran some more and when I was pulling up my basketball shorts I realized that I put them on backwards. This was because I was changing in the dark in my room. Running next to the beach is beautiful, like I think location-wise, this might be the best place I've lived in. Right when I step out the door, I'm almost entering the beach.

Cavebed

My shared room is quite small. We have to share a desk. Yes, a desk. Sometimes I just wanted to go on my bed and read or something where i was a comfortable distance away from my roommate. But it was too dark under the bunk bed! So what you see here is my wonderful invention, the cave bed. There was an extra light in the room so I took it and tied it with a phone recharger (i had two) to the roof of my bunk bed. It took a while but it was well worth the time. Now I use this light like everyday. And on my bed you can see my wonderful spanish bible haha and my newly opened mail that I got from my family. So even when the whole room is dark, I can bathe in brilliance of this warm ikea lamp light.

Here is a song by John Pizzarelli + Jessica Molaskey that I think is neat. Isaac and I heard this live, it was so good, and they happened to play this on their radio show so i nabbed it. J.Molaskey actually explains on the radio that its a mix of two songs that they put together and they call it the "cloud burst medley".

Also...

Rome
I went there.

Scotland
I'm going there this Thursday.

yay

When the stars align

Malaga!

Abroad 

I just woke up from a 2 hour siesta.  So I'll give a little summary of my trip so far.

First we arrived in Madrid and stayed there for two days.  The people in the program are almost all white and female.   For the people going to Malaga there's like 20 girls, 3 boys.  Everyone's pretty nice here.  So went around Madrid and it was cool.  Met up w/Jewearly + her friend Joanna and ate some paella.  Then off to Toledo where we spent two days.  I didn't take any pics of Madrid but here is one of Toledo.  It was reallly beautiful and I would say I prefer it even to Madrid.  

So here it is at night.  It's dark but the streets are so well lit.  It's fun just walking around. 

One thing I love is watching accordian players!  Dude I am digging the sound.  Anyhow so we spent two days in Toledo looking around in churches, museums, paintings, same routine like Madrid.

Then to Malaga!  Dude, I seriously chose the right city.  I didn't know too much about it before but I am so glad I chose it and they placed me where they did.  My homestay mom is really nice and hablamos en espanol.  So there's a mom, dad and a daughter whos like 26.  anyhow, the place reminds me a lot more of Miami than CA.  I'm not sure whether i like it for itself or because its so similar to home.  OK I didn't take too many pics but I have a person that lives riiight next door to me who's also in the program so I told her to take a pic of me on my balcony.  I live like the closest to the beach.  It's actually 15 minutes walk from the ISA (name of program) office and about 45 minute walk to school haha but I wouldn't trade it for anything.  Tomorrow i think i get a roommate.  will update on that later haha.  The room is pretty small but the weather is genius now.  

man my eyes came out really small haha.  to give you perspective, the apartment is small but theres one more balcony behind me which is also our house so we are basically in the corner of the building.  I'm right outside of my room.  anyways so if i cross that street im basically at the beach ahaha.  school is long, 9-2 m-f doing regular spanish language for 2 weeks and then i take elective classes 11-2 m-f later for the rest of the program after that.  how is everyone else doing?   

Espana

I am Here!

Estoy aqui. Arrived in Madrid a few hours ago and tonight we go on a panoramic tour of Madrid. Will keep you posted!

Summer things...

Notes

Since I've been back home I've been doing a lot of the things I wanted to do.  The ukulele has been fun to play with and I'm trying to get myself to read more (in esp,kor,eng).  I was looking at my ITunes playlist yesterday and after carrying around and listening to Angela's music the whole time I was out of the country, I almost forgot how good my playlist was.  The only thing I would change is some more good Christian music and more vocal jazz (which is why we have Cliff!).  

I was trying to look for a poem I read a long time ago and i found it!  And now that I read it again it is still beautiful so I'll share it with you guys.

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with the golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams beneath your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams...

W.B. Yeats

I think it expresses that what we have that is intangible is actually a greater gift than the tangible things we wish for.  It kind of reminds me of the story of Mary pouring the alabaster jar at Jesus' feet because I'm sure she wished she could have given Jesus the world.  But really the most precious gift is actually something you already have inside of you.

And I'll leave you guys with a picture of me and some teachers and counselors doing Souljah boi dance in Korea.

crank dat souljah boi.

A Sign of the Last Days

Guess what?

Sorry for not updating on Korea! Camp has been hectic. I havent taken too many pictures but it's been pretty fun. Todays the last real day and tomorrow we're heading to Seoul. I'm going to meet up with my family there and then the next day we go to Thailand! Can't wait to see everyone. It feels good to have my mom in Korea even though we are super far apart. So I'll provide a bigger post with the haps later but guess what? It is a monumental occasion today because just a few seconds ago I made a Facebook! I thought I would need one when I went to Spain but theres a few people I want to keep in touch with in Korea. I don't know how you would add me but if you know my email you might be able to find me. Ok have to go downstairs to another activity.

Korea thus far

Motherland
Hello from Korea! This will be a mini update but hopefully I can post some pictures later. Today I got to the camp where I will be teaching and they rented out a university which is an hour outside of Seoul. It's super beautiful because its like built on a mountain and surrounded by nature. Before today, I've been playing a lot with my sister and going to different places and trying different foods. I've been eating so much. It's really interesting here because theres so many cultures. I'll give a few examples.

1) I'm from America.
a) my Korean is whatevers so once i start speaking, the Koreans sometimes automatically start trying to speak english to me.

2) Yesterday I met the Guatemala national soccer team and I got to converse a little with them in Spanish so that was pretty fun. They lost 2-1 to Korea national team the day before.

3) I played ball with Chinese people from China today. I thought they were Korean at first so I just talked korean but then the guy said to speak english and from then on we both used hand gestures.

4) In the camp (today was the first day) there are a bunch of different cultures coming together.
a) The teachers are from all over. I'm American. My roommate is Canadian and the other teacher I met is from Australia. Its kind of funny speaking together. I heard theres going to be more people coming from Thailand, Ireland and New Zealand. It's weird because its an english camp but I have to be careful knowing when to talk english and when to talk Korean.
b) The counselors are mostly college students who live in Korea but have studied abroad from all over as well. Some of them are like native speakers so its pretty cool. But because they know I'm not from here I think they think that I don't understand the language or culture at all. But its cool and hopefully I can make friends and practice some Korean.
i) of the counselors there is no one hot.


Highlight of the Day:
When we were eating at a Korean restaurant, one of the Korean guy counselors asked, in english, if I knew how to use chopsticks. When I gave him a weird look, one of the girl counselors told me that they had forks. I'm going to ask them why they arent wearing hanbok next time I see them.

The DR

La Republica Dominicana

Hello! I hope everybody is doing well. I got back from the Dominican Republic a few days ago and it was an awesome experience. I decided like a week before the actual mission trip to go because it was so cheap. I'll talk about the team first and what a wonderful team this was. The rest of the group was from Daniel's church in La Habra but I knew most of them before and by the end of the trip I knew them all too well.
So I'll go for a quick left to right. Sam is my dude and I've been on every mission trip w/him so far; Daniel is the pastor of the La Habra church and led the team; Meg is the resident samoneem (Daniel's gf); Connie, who led most of the worship and even did a few songs in spanish; Yuree, the official liaison between our group and Korean pastors/missionaries (if the korean adults ever said a joke, she was the only one that would get it); Then the babies of our group, Sarah and Chris; me; then Tammy the hilarious. This whole team is made up of awesome men and women of God and I really feel like this team was supernaturally put together for this trip because everyone got along so well.

OK so we got hooked up with missionaries over there when we arrived and we stayed at this house basically the whole time. The missionaries did such a good job of planning our schedule out and despite the language barrier (have to get better at Korean!) the communication was really good. Ok I don't have a clear recollection of everything so I'll just jump around our schedule. One of the first days, we went to an orphanage.There were a lot of scenes like this actually. We spent a lot of time leading services, worship, sermons and testimonies, praying for people. We got to pray for a lot of sicknesses and a lot of people were healed! It was amazing to see God use kids like us (oldest was 24) to bring healing and bring the Kingdom of God to different places. On this particular day, the missionaries that were hosting us told us that we were going to the beach. We were all excited and were expecting sand and ocean but what came far exceeded our expectations.


They took us out to Boca Chica on a private yacht and we spent the rest of the day swimming in 5 foot water and chilling on the yacht.  I tried to get the video footage working but its being stubborn so maybe another time. 

Here is a night shot of the group. Gangster rappers have used this yacht to film rap music videos. 

The day after we did some construction work to help build a church. I think at this point I really came to admire our team because everyone wanted to help out.
Ok I will mention one other night too. We had the electricity go out on us 2 services. both times there were actually a lot of people but I'll talk about the second time. So we went to this Haitian church on one of the last days. It was our second to last time ministering to people. So this was a regular Sunday and Connie and Daniel shared. The lights went out when Connie shared but it was actually not too bad even though it got a little louder. This is actually a picture of the scene when I used flash on my camera. The video is a more accurate depiction of how dark it was. So the only light was this glowstick Sarah happened to have from the Korean Festival at Hollywood Bowl. It was pitch dark so they set up some candles. So after Daniel shared, he told me to get the guitar from the back so I rushed to the back of the room and then, to hear other people tell it, there was a "thud". So I found myself on the ground after tripping on this halfstep and I could hear this big gasp around me. But I got up as fast as I fell down and said "Estoy bien" and got the guitar. I was pretty flushed but it was dark so I'm hoping they mistake me for someone else. But actually that night was probably one of the best nights. We got to pray for a lot of people and there were a lot of testimonies of healing. Circumstances are not greater than God! There was seriously a move of God but even beyond the healings and miracles, His name was our great reward. There's seriously nothing better than Himself.

The trip was awesome and this blogging business took way too long. I'm happy to be back in SoCal but I miss the people and the beaches and talking behind the backs of my teammates to the natives. JK but I actually did practice Spanish and it was kind of encouraging just talking to the Domincans. I'll post the rest of my pictures somewhere, somehow. There's a lot more stuff that happened but when we'll talk when we meet up.

Same thing we do every night...

This Yurr

I just wanted to give a quick update on my tentative plans for this year.  Right now and next week is finals week for me so I'm studying some.  After this week, on the 16th, I recently decided to go to Dominican Republic for missions.  woohoo!  pretty excited for that and it's such a cheap trip with people i like so i think its going to be good.  tambien es una oportunidad a practicar el espanol.  So that's going to be about a week.  Then off to Korea I go for a month to hang out and teach some English at a camp.  

After Korea, I think I'll be hitting up two more countries, Japan and Thailand, with my family.  So I get back sometime during August I think.  Then in September, (this is my most tentative plan) I'll be going to Espana for my study abroad!  So I'll try to take some pictures with digital camera and upload them.  I hope there is one divinely appointed day when everyone is free to get dinner and boba or something.

Muffins

Origins

Hello!  Sorry I have not updated for so long!  Sometimes I look at other people's blogs and I'm frustrated they don't entertain me with fun and new exciting entries and then I forget I haven't updated mine.  So I wanted to give a little background on this thoughtpad I call a blog.  So the term "easy as muffins" came up when Clifford came over to my house to think of some lyrics for a song which eventually became "Strings Released".  So we were in the kitchen eating something trying to think of the first line of the song.  We had some parts down but I remember Cliff wanted to have another verse cuz it was short.  So if you listen to the song, the first line is "we have this night to share, this easy lovin summer night so fair".  You can check out a rough copy on www.myspace.com/i dont actually know.  just go to www.myspace.com/cliffkang and his buddy is makeshift_28 :).  

so we were trying to figure out the first line and cliff said that i could just write whatever and he'll sing it no matter how long or short it was (Clifford you may correct me if any of this is wrong).  So I came up with this genius phrase which is the title of this wonderful blog.  I thought "Easy as muffins" was already a phrase and when I realized nobody had ever heard of it before I was surprised that such a chic saying was not being said across the world.  We tried so many different possibilities.  I remember specifically trying really hard to rhyme "easy lovin" with "toaster oven".  Needless to say, the phrase did not get into our song but I loved it so much so I had to put it somewhere else.  Anyways, i wrote a poem about muffin heads because everyone loves muffin heads right?  Who doesnt like to eat just the top of the muffin.  Nobody wants that crumby/crummy base.  See what I did there?  I just made a homophone joke.  

So here is my muffin poem which may turn into a song.

-------------

Muffin Heads 

By AJP

Squeaking slippers in the kitchen/ Sleepy ticking in key

with body swinging looking for a morning beat

up and open the blinds and I finally see 

An early morning muffin patch in a basket weaved

Mmmm I love them muffin heads

I'll take the roof off with my hands the twister

blueberry dots in the vanilla mixture

turtle shell cracks so easy crisp

A dreamy cloud sweet singing in my mouth like ella fitz

Don't want to undress your paper ridges

So giddy and smiling I begin to fidget

Bust you off the top like a kettle hot

sail to the mouth doing 50 knots

bridge

O Bottom aren't you a collection of crumbs

it would be nice like fair weather if you got yourself together

and come from remainder to sum

--------------

I don't have a chorus yet but we'll see if the phrase can get in a song on its second attempt.  In other news, I played w/blessed at a wedding for the first time today.  It was really fun!  We played 2 songs and enjoyed the wedding.   Hopefully one day I'll be able to play jazz as a wedding band.  ;-) Busy week at school this week.  I had a lot to say on my spiritual state but maybe that will come later because this is so much text already.  Have a good day!

Beverly Kenney

BK the Queen

I first heard about Beverly Kenney when I was listening to the John Pizzarelli radio show and they played two of her tracks: "Give Me the Simple Life" and "Surrey on the Top".  There's not that many people who can pull off "cool" so easily and her simple and clean tone shows the honesty of her singing.  She sadly committed suicide at the height of her career at 28.  Now, she is nearly forgotten but she left albums that are waiting to be re-discovered.   

I listened through it twice and I really like it.  The quality is amazing for being recorded in the 1950s.  For the Johnny Smith CD, I recommend "Destination Moon" (currently my favorite song) but all of them are awesome.  Johnny Smith is the guitarist and I love the style.  She even does a song in the style of "Greensleeves".  The one for Playboys is actually only bass and piano so I was surprised.  It's not as punchy as the Johnny Smith CD but it's so sweet and it showcases the two instruments really well.  There's such a simpleness about it that I love.

 

Click on Text to DL.

Beverly Kenny Sings for Johnny Smith

 

Beverly Kenney Sings for Playboys

 

Something funny happened to me today.  A while ago I flunked a pop quiz test and I was sad when I got my grade online a couple days later, a 9 out of 20, but I was glad I got some right because I had absolutely no idea what the quiz was about.  I circled everything randomly.  So in one part, I had to mark either Reflectional or Derivational concerning a list of 10 words.  So I chose them randomly and I was kind of happy that I thought I got around half right.  So today I get back the quiz and I look at the Reflectional v. Derivational part.  It turns out that out of 10 of those problems, I got 9 of them wrong hahaha.  But the amount wrong was so great that the grader thought that I just had the two concepts mixed up so they gave me 3 more points haha.  hurray!  

I just realized how low and sad my standards have become.

The Human Touch

Communicating

I am slowly realizing how important human relationships are. There are different seasons and times and while spending alone time w/God is important, maintaining the body of Christ is essential as well. I've been in Christian environments for so long that I've taken for granted the quality of the relationships I have w/people. I didn't realize that even people in the church often don't even have one Christian friend whom they could depend on consistently and the results are harsh. Getting plugged into a church and letting iron sharpen iron is necessary especially when we live in a time when the alternatives look so much easier and better.

Midterm of Death

Studying of Death

Today I had a midterm for one of my classes. So my midterm was at 3:30 and I left home around 2 because one of my housemates put his U2 dvd on right next to me while I was studying. -_-;; Anyhow I was fine studying outside but I realized my laptop needed to be charged. And by the time I knew it, it shut down on me. I needed to study the powerpoint slides so I went inside some random science building and I saw this girl with her laptop plugged into an outlet in the hallway. So I went to another hall, found an outlet and plugged me laptop in and sat down to study. Right next to me is a 7 foot gigantic tank of nitrogen gas. I know this because there is a sign that says "No nitrogen liquid. Only gas." on the wall.

Everything is going fine and there are 10 minutes left till class when all of a sudden the tank starts hissing. It was hissing a little bit before but now it was suddenly getting louder and louder. My first reaction was to play it cool- maybe this happens regularly. But the noise was getting so loud so fast like a kettle so I began to panic. I imagined myself damaged by the explosion but gaining superpowers but sad that I became deformed and was ostracized by the world. I tried to get all my stuff and get out of there but my power cord for the laptop didn't disconnect all the way and I stumbled and dropped my laptop and my books. Then the hissing stopped and for a second I was disappointed for not playing it cool but I was thankful that my body was not mangled. So I kind of did play it cool and I picked everything up and just walked out to go to class a little early. I think that girl in the hallway next to me heard me because she was smiling. Either she heard me drop everything and stumble or she fell victim to the irresistible aura that surrounds me. But judging the circumstances I'm going to guess it is the former (and judging her appearance thankfully so). JK. On another note I'm glad that this blog has limited readers haha.

So to sum it up: I am alive and well.

Preference

Teaching Kids
As I was just about to write this I realized my knee is bleeding. I knew I bumped into something but gah! ok cleaned up.

Last week I went to go help out a friend at this afterschool program called MIKA (I think) and its basically a place where kids in tough neighborhoods can go afterschool and this basically makes me a wonderful person or some kind of hero haha jk. So the kids come by the time slots; 4 o'clock k-2nd, 5 is 3rd-5, 6 is 6th and jr. High. I came at 4 and the kids were awesome. They are like puppies. They were so cute and nice. 5'o clock and 6 o'clock kids were drastic contrasts to 4 o'clock kids. Some, not all, of the older kids are loud and not fun to work with. Made my head hurt. I remember Dmitri Martin saying a joke: "I heard this lady say ' I love kids'. Thats nice...little weird though. That's like saying I like people for a little while." But I find it true. If you're in an awkward stage where you're still a kid but you're not really cute... I'll probably teach you wrong. haha jk. I love medium sized kids.

Bad Battery and the Good Drinks

After I got my laptop back from sending it in I was so happy. But I noticed that my battery level has gone down so much. The time it goes at is just around 1 hour. -_-. So it probably cannot last me through this one class period. Should I get a new battery? How are all your guyses? Onwards...

Korean Drinks
mmmm...I love Korean drinks. America is most identified by soda, France to wine, the rest of the world to tea. I try not to drink soda and I hope I develop a taste for wine later in my life and tea is good but after a long hard day of understanding half of what my Spanish professors are saying, I love coming home to my wonderful korean drinks.


Yogurt Drink
Refreshing and simple. Its not something you have to carry around to finish but you can drink it on the spot. One Shot!








Pear Drink
I love this drink. At the marked they sell it in packages as these as "Gift Sets". I don't know if people actually give these at gifts. If I received one for my birthday or something I would frankly be a little insulted. Until I saw how cute the small fat cans were.

Side Note: There are variations of this drink in similar cans with apple and peach and these are not as good. Also, the SacSac drink, an orange drink not pictured, is equally wonderful and old school.



Shikae
I was trying to find a picture of this online and after a while I found it was most commonly spelled "sikhye" in english. But Shikae sounds more correct to me. So they usually serve this at restaurants after a meal and it is the most sweet and refreshing thing ever. This probably looks the most Korean/Asian out of all the drinks so far but the taste isn't that exotic.





SooJeungGwa
This is what my entry culminates to. I didn't mean for this picture to be so big but I feel like it was divinely done so as to emphasize the greatness of this drink. This is the can version which I usually drink but at some restaurants they serve this after a meal as well. SooJeungGwa is a cinnamon drink with hints of persimmon and ginger, served cold. I really take this as a relief drink and even a wake up drink. It's not a drink you should down whenever you want. IE: I usually don't drink it in the morning and never drink more than 1 at a time. It's really a delicate drink I like to sip on for 30 minutes at night as I take my Korean drama/gameshow study break. I have 5 stacked in my apt. fridge and 1 in my backpack I will drink when my laptop runs out of battery and I'm forced to look up to what's going on in class.


So my battery is down to 16 minutes :(. There's no cafes really that sell these kind of drinks so if you come over to my house, we can drink over a korean movie. Ok stay good in school and lets study hard!

Vocalese

Vocalese Steeze

After a day of speaking Spanish, I want to come home and get some English straight infused in me so that I know I'm atleast competent in one language.  A while ago, Isaac sent me this video of Dave Brubeck and Al Jarreau doing "Take 5".  The band was ofcourse professionally awesome but I was more captivated by the singing.  I can't say I fell in love with it right away but it was so different that it made me listen.  

So later, or maybe before, I stumbled upon a video of Annie Ross' "Twisted".  I looked up Annie Ross and found out the style of singing was called "vocalese".  I "obtained" some music from "Lambert, Hendricks and Ross", the vocalese group and I was reading the inside cover of the pamphlet and the music is pretty crazy.  And by "crazy" I mean that sometimes it is so busy that it is hard to listen to.  I definitely cannot study to it.  But some of the songs are put together so well and are really fun to listen to.  

So the trio undertook this project of imitating the horns a whole band, choosing Count Basie's Big Band, and Jon Hendricks wrote the lyrics to not only the solos but the ensemble passages as well.  It's basically like scatting, which vocalizes solos, but putting words to it.  60 hours of studio time and multi taping led to the completion of this project and Basie's  own rhythm section contributed as well.  The reason I sort of wrote about this is because I went to a performance at Steamers' cafe and the singer did a vocalese song and it was super swinging.  

Here is one song "Everyday" .  Basie's "Everyday".  

Annie Ross' "Twisted" w/Count Basie.

Happiness

Slow Koalas

The title is my attempt at picturing happiness.  Koalas are happy and cute, right?  This blog has pretty much turned into a music review site so here's a little change of direction.  Today, I was re-listening to a sermon by a woman I met who sort of heads a ministry in Berkeley called "The Ark".  I was listening to it in the library and I was really affected by it.  I took notes because I wanted to act like I was doing something while listening.  Here's a little of what I got from it. 

Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.  -2 Cor. 9:7

There are a lot of times I feel like I must do something to be an ambassador of God's will.  Like when we see verses like "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart".  The religious spirit says that , "You should have no needs or desires because that is selfish and that is a sin."  So we end up hating ourselves (because ofcourse self-hatred looks godly) saying, "I don't care about my own needs, I have no needs... i count myself as nothing...give give give.".  But when we ignore and criticize our own needs and ourselves, we end up hating others because there is no root of love founded in the works.  I can testify to having resentment for the community over overworking and it's not the fault of other people but it is because I haven't learned to say "no".  

ie: Every time the Pharisees saw Jesus giving to a sinner, they would say, "Doesn't he know that guy is a sinner?".  The Pharisees' works were apparent and wonderful but their hearts was for their own glory.  

This is important.  Glorifying someone is revealing the nature of someone else.  Glorifying someone is revealing the nature of someone else.  So when we glorify God we are revealing his nature.  But when we do things out of obligation, we are revealing our own nature and we are directing the glory towards ourselves.  So when we are working under obligation, we are actually glorifying ourselves.  

One of my favorite stories in the bible is that of Mary and Martha.  I really do feel for Martha because I can relate totally.  The voice of Martha is "You should ...you should do this if you're a good christian.  You're good because of what you do."  But this is the voice that God hates.  We can't drive ourselves into perfection or goodness because then Jesus' blood doesn't count.  Really, we just have to sit down and be in his gaze... like, "I'm going to waste my time being with you."  I can do ministry and serve others until I die but unless I let him love me, I 'll never love.  Unless I let him love me I'll never love.  It's frighteningly beautiful, realizing that there is a God in love that is waiting for us to talk to him.  

This is longer than intended and just to put the sermon in application, you are under no obligation to read this all.  And in no way do I have any of these principles down, but what a trip.  Just an encouragement: We're perfect the way we are.  Here's the sermon if you want to listen to it.   The sermon is called Martha v. Mary Part. 1.

!Buena suerte a los que estan estudiando!

Post Game Report

Little Giants

Ok, the headline's a little trite but what a game, what a game.  I wasn't too intent about watching the game today so I slept in and came downstairs to watch with my Dad the end of the 3rd Quarter.  I think the score was 7-3 Patriots or something so I don't really regret missing the beginning.  But I was on my tippy-toes the fourth quarter.  Eli Manning.  

Great performance and that last minute pass was insane.  That's him on the left.  People don't know this but he also starred in "The Sixth Sense" with Bruce Willis.  This guy was being so criticized in the middle of the season and there was a lot of pressure on him as the former #1 draft pick.  Who didn't get teary-eyed when Fox switched from a shot of the field to a shot of Peyton Manning in a clubhouse standing and cheering his brother after the game winning touchdown?  That image still gives me the chills. 

This game reminded me of a lot of good things about sports.  Which reminds me that I must go exercise sometime this week.  I feel like a blob.  Ok here is one song that I heard on John Pizzarelli's radio show by Janis Siegel called "What am I to You".  I love this song but what really amazes me is that it is live...in a living room... ok so enjoy!  

Mud Football

Superbowl

I was in my writing class when I saw browsing cnn.com and I came across "All Time Dumbest SuperBowl Questions".  Some of them are so funny.  My favorite is #7.  Link .  

JOTD 

What do you call a long post?  Pooooooost.

What do you call a short post?

Your face.

A Couple Songs

Dan in Real Life

I know I have been talking about this movie a lot but now I have the music to back it up.  But before or after you listen to the music, watch the movie!  The movie is not like an epic achievement but when you watch the movie you'll understand the songs in its completion.  So go to your local dollar theater.  This past week, I've been alternating between two tracks in my car.  I'm convinced that coupling a guy and girl singer is almost a guarantee for a hit record.  It's just more fun to listen to right?  A couple examples that come to mind are two great movie songs, Music & Lyrics- "way back into love" w/ hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore and Walk to Remember- "Someday we'll know" w/Jon Foreman + Mandy Moore.   Ok, so I uploaded two songs now that I know how, one with Regina Spektor and one with Lillian Samdel.  Sondre Lerche basically made the entire album which I think is quite an achievement for an OST.  I'm not a "hell no" type of guy but can you really make that phrase sound any sweeter?  

AIM

Messenger

I haven't been on AIM for a while but I was just reminiscing on the good times spent on it during jr high and high school. I remember I would maybe like IM someone else and tell them to warn someone with me. so we would lure him into talking and then warn! warn! warn! hahaha. or if someone that i didnt like IMed me, I wouldn't reply and I would just keep warning them haha. and they would just send messages like "stop", "what the", "i'm going to eat your hands." not so much the last one.

Even worse internet drama was "fantasy basketball". That thing controlled my life from winter to spring. Luckily I stopped playing it after like sophomore year. But I remember people would not talk to other people because of that game. Proposing and rejecting trade proposals. Pretty fun.

Here is one of my favorite Korean music performances. Sort of random but great. The lyrics aren't that deep (imagine the singer after she gets dumped drinking soju and that's pretty much the gist of the song) but that's probably what makes it so fun.

Prepare to Be Surprised

Before the River

A lot (or a little more than usual) has been on my mind about the meaning of death and suffering. The more I reflect and learn about it, the more I feel like it is not understandable (3/4 in a hopeless way and 1/4 in an accepting way). But things happen. Good things, bad things. Some things we take to heart more than others. Is life hard or is it easy? It is what it is. I know this is incredibly indecisive. Who can define hurt except through experience?

Amidst this, I watched "Dan in Real Life" today (thanks Jon for Sondre Lerche!) and before I went into the theater, I really felt good. Like not the braindead, ignorant good nor the so good that I want to cry but just a brief moment of thankfulness, for life, for a few good friends and for time. It was a little unusual. Dan in Real Life was awesome and another awesome awesome movie is the Korean movie "Secret Sunshine". The main actress won best actress at the Cannes Film Festival. I usually don't like anything not funny but this was a good exception.

Yay for music.

Study Study

A Regular Thang?

I went to the library for two consecutive days to study and this is kind of a big deal for me. My roommates and even Isaac couldn't believe it. The main purpose was to borrow some books on course reserves but I studied there too. There was nobody at the library because it was the first week of school so I felt extra smart just being there. Anyhow, school just started but my Spanish classes son divertidos y me gustan mis profesores. Crei que seria dificil a despertar en las mananas pero no ha sido una problema grande. Here is a video que me encanta mucho. Bossa Nova!