Korea and Japan have such a love-hate, symbiotic relationship…one that can be playful as it is intense. At the most cynical, you can say Koreans are helping out Japan in her own self-interest. Maybe.  But at face value, I’d like to believe the efforts made by Koreans to help Japan are genuine.  Unfortunately it may take a tragedy such as the tsunami to take us beyond our national or ethnic identities to bond us at our core identity as humans.

While the younger generations in Japan and Korea can bond over pop culture or other trends, I don’t think Japan’s colonial past should ever be forgotten as history has a funny way of repeating itself.  But there’s always the option to let go of the past and not let it define you.

Last week the Korean comfort women stopped their weekly protest outside the Japanese embassy to pray for the victims from the tsunami.  Sometimes suffering can bind us in our humanity.

We still suffer with you Japan and pray for healing, peace and a quick recovery.

Just discovered this song and fell in love with her voice

This is the day I meet him. It’s either going to be epic. Or crazy fail.

I haven’t even met him yet and it’s been such an intense relationship. I’ve lost productivity, a lot of sleep and some sanity. And it hasn’t been a month yet either.

But we get along so well. Honestly, it’s a bit uncanny the way we click and the chemistry we have from talking on the phone, texting and emailing; I feel like he’s an old friend who I’m catching up with.

Still, maybe we’re just great phone people and it’ll be awkward in person.

Last night I felt so nervous about meeting him that I went through a pack of Goobers, Milk Duds and a whole bag of Pirate Booty after dinner. (This is the second…and the last time I will finish a whole bag of Pirate Booty after a hearty meal.)  I also had 3 glasses of wine and abruptly told him I had to go because I felt overwhelmed talking to him. We eventually talked again later at night and I felt better.

He called me this morning at 7:30; I guess he was the nervous one this time around. I can’t wait to meet him and finally get that prerequisite out of the way when I tell my friends, “So, I’ve met someone…”

• I don’t pay attention to it.
• When I do have the time to pay attention to it, I ramble and make tons of mistakes because it’s late at night and I’m falling asleep.
• I’m starting to censor myself a lot more. If I have anything interesting to say, I refrain from saying it because everyone including creeps, employers, family and church people may misinterpret or infer erroneous things about me.

My previous blogs have been more interesting to read. I’m talking circa 2003; I was less inhibited then.  Anyhow I’ll attempt to write more freely and more often from now on; I’m too old to care about what people think of me.

However I think, I mean I feel, that Typealyzer is generally right about my personality in terms of friendly disposition and wanting to help others.  I don’t need to surround myself with aesthetically pleasing things, but who doesn’t mind them? Certainly I don’t like looking for conflict but I will definitely confront if I feel it’s necessary.

The ad never ran and glad it didn’t because there’s no correlation whatsoever to be made between the tsunami and the September 11 attacks.

However it helps put things in perspective for many Americans because I think we only feel terror if it involves a plane crashing into a building but we don’t blink twice at our acts of terror that killed so many more in the form of war, bombings and raids.

Watching the memorial service online this morning, the feelings are definitely still raw.  I hope we never forget 9/11, or 3/11, 7/7, 9/4, or 11/26 for that matter and I hope that in the end, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars won’t be pyrrhic victories.

I realize I will never understand the dude and I feel extraordinarily relieved that we  decided to become friends. After two years of breaking up and trying to make things work out, I’m just happy that it’s over.  We’re just two very different people.  Sometimes it just takes that long to admit…

I’m not sure why I kept looking for signs when I was ignoring the biggest sign that I just wasn’t happy and couldn’t love him for who he was.  Of course we were both upset and sad the night we broke up. It was so sudden but inevitable.  I was mopey, moody and wallowed in my sorrow. We wrote each other a couple of soulful emails. I made sappy playlists.

Two days after we broke up,  I dropped by to return some CDs  that I stole from him. After some cautious apprehension, we relaxed as we chatted, respecting each other’s space and our new relationship as we watched the Yanks sweep Boston.  It felt good and it felt right to be friends. I’m sure we will miss each other and our companionship in the days to come, but I think we will be happy too.

peel garlic for lunch

jog

shave my legs

clean

budget

twitter

read the bible (but didnt)

(by Ian Kim)

other, foreign, exotic, not quite human…

Saw Treeless Mountain during the film festival couple weekends ago. My friend who I brought bawled at the end.  I just thought it was bittersweet…

I caught up with last Sunday’s paper yesterday and read an article about two married directors, So Yong Kim and Brad Rust Gray, whose new movies have recently been released.  It was Kim who directed Treeless and I want to see her older movie, In Between Days next.

Gray directed a movie, Salt, that was released 2003. It was set in Iceland and having gone to Iceland in March, I want to see that as well.  I just don’t know how I’m going to track these two movies down but I really have to watch them now. (netflix is inevitable after all i suppose)

It’s nice to see how, as a couple, they can encourage and help each other make these award-winning movies. Their daughter Sky is absolutely adorable as well.

http://www.soandbrad.com/contact.htm