hahah ohh….

..no but guys. seriously.

some wisdom

1. in case any of you guys are wondering if it is ok to just flush a banana peel down the toilet, it is not. it will clog your toilet.

2. if you ever try it anyways, make sure you remember to unclog it before you poop.

You are welcome.

I just wanted to note for the record, that this weekend I was in LA, Phil was in Philadelphia, Joe was in Atlanta, and Frank was in New York.

Far far away from 1109 taylor st.

pillows and blankets

* originally from http://www.basementsixpack.wordpress.com *

With this slew of good weather lately, it might be hard to remember but Chicago winters were brutal.  I remember waking up thinking that I needed to shake icicles from my nostrils.  Or, no matter how many layers I put on, if I get out of bed, I will never be warm again.  Easily the worst was waking up, having to go to work and knowing with one hundred percent certainty that there was no place warmer on Earth than your bed at that very moment.  Yet, reality was cruel and you just had to get up and go despite how much your soul (not to mention fingers, toes and general extremities) shrieked NOOO!.

Eventually, I developed a system.  If I were to rate it myself on a genius scale from 0 to 100, 0 being juggling chainsaws while in a daycare and 100 being Einstein and Steve Job’s lovechild, I’d say it was a solid 90.  I would plan out what I needed to wear the next day and stacked it under the covers with me before I went to sleep.  That way, it would be warmed up the entire night and when the dreadful morning finally arrived, you could get dressed in bed.  Think about it, you completely forgo that awful moment when you have to take off your jammies even though you were already too cold to function.  In other words, I would wake up, and then while still under covers, put on my dress shirt, hoody, pants, socks, parkas, scarf, gloves, polar bear skin, etc.  Throughout the winter, whenever I was cold, I would think of home, which for me was the image of my bed with its mass of pillows, blankets and comforters.

Fast forward to present day, I am weeks away from moving to U of I to start law school.  Essentially I am on the brink of setting out on a new life.  I’m scared, possibly horrified, that this new setting will be brittle, cold and numbing to my skin.  Like the darkest Chicago winter day, I feel forced to leave home and fearful that I will never find another that is half of the one I’ve made here.  In the time I’ve spent here, the friends I’ve made have become the pillows, blankets and comforters of my life.  Really, you guys have given me support while my head saturated with stress and warmth in times when my heart iced over and true all encompassing satisfying comfort. ( get it? analogy between comforter and comfort? too direct? sigh…. )  And no matter how much I try to prepare myself to face the chill, nothing is better than just being home, in bed or with friends.  No, I don’t mean in bed with my friends.  Stop giggling Griff, you too Pat.

On the up side, the great thing about setting out to capture the day is that when you’ve done it, you can always come back home.  Gratefully, I know exactly where home is; it’s easy to find when it can’t be lost.

frankiet – brb

It’s Swine Fever!!

Have you caught it yet?

No, not the flu. The paranoia! I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes. Slowly and surely the fear of this new virus is chipping away at my normally cool and ruggedly handsome exterior. It’s already starting to affect my every day life, I mean, I’ve already washed my hands like 10 times! In the past week! wait that’s not a lot? interesting…

I’ve read that there’s this new tech tool that can track the chatter on social websites like twitter to determine swine flu outbreaks. This is GREAT! Gotta stay informed! Gotta stay on your toes! Nothing is as reliable as twitter, power to the people!

hang on. my computer is lagging cause it can’t catch up to the rate that I’m hitting refresh on the cdc website. ugh. hurry up…gotta stay informed. GOTTA STAY INFORMED!!! oh! another forward from my family with ways to prevent swine flu! yes! can’t read the same thing TOO many times!

Anyways, you can’t be TOO careful. Do it for the children. Won’t somebody please think of the children!!

Swine Flu- Ground Zero

OMG. SCREW CHILDREN. EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!
It’s the Aporkalypse! The end swines!! Eternal Hamnation! Stick a pork in us we’re done! We’re pigging our own graves! uh…hog….hogged….hogging… hogyea got nothin. that’s it.

[Poon]

p.s. In all seriousness, I found a great site that evaluates your symptoms and tells you if you have Swine flu. Check it out: http://doihaveswineflu.org/

p.p.s. In all real seriousness I hope no one I know gets swine flu and makes me regret writing this.

Things not to do at the library on 04/01/09

I don’t think I’m a demanding person. Sorry if I am but today at the library, this is just a few meters over that line. It may be April Fools but I do not believe what I observe to be some intentional wacky joke.

1. Do not play your crazy european talk show off your laptop speakers at full blast.

Come on, now. If you can’t even talk on your cell phone up here, how do you seriously think it’s ok to come to the library where people are studying, sleeping, reading, etc and think you can watch and laugh at your whatever show you’re watching.

2. Do not steal the books off the ‘For Sale’ shelf

Ok ok… I understand we’re in a recession but really, you can’t toss 25 cents into the bin? Really?

3. Do NOT NOT NOT bring in library materials as reading material into the bathroom!

I’ll be the first one to tell you that I enjoy bringing magazines or books into the bathroom. Really I do. But those things are also things I own and possess. I know it’s a public library but that does NOT mean that the whole public owns the books in there. If you need me to say it clearer, no it’s not ok to bring in books you have found at the library into your visit to the can.

This all happened within a little over an hour of being here. Man I’m tired.

Handsome out

Understanding the Credit Crisis

Let me be honest, if someone were to approach me and ask why the economy is the way it is right now I would probably say something along the lines of handing out too many mortgages to people who can’t pay and mention how there was just too much borrowed money. It would get me by, but I really don’t have a conceptual understanding of why those things occurred and it certainly isn’t enough knowledge to have an opinion on economic decisions being made in the news.

Perhaps I’m just uniquely ignorant, but I’m willing to bet that most people wouldn’t be able to explain it all very clearly if they had to. I feel like since it’s something that’s all over the news and heard and talked about every day, everyone just goes along as if they know what’s going on. Bits and pieces are gathered from hearing “who’s to blame” and what’s being done, then reactions are formed based on limited understanding. Everyone’s walking around with their emperor’s knowledge hoping no one calls them out because, of course, you’d be stupid NOT to understand.

But again, perhaps I’m uniquely ignorant.

In any case, I came across this video that does a pretty good job of explaining on a basic level what led up to the economic collapse. It’s really well done and the graphics keep your attention– which is important because, of course, this is all refresher anyways, right?

Enjoy!

Consumerist article

[Poon]

p.s. Is that use of semi-colon correct? I just guessed.

Abortion

Pro-life or pro-choice. I used to not think anything about this and thought if the person wanted to get the child aborted, it’s their child so it’s their choice. I’ve been listening to a lot of people speak about this subject and now I know for sure that I am completely prolife, although I have to admit I have been listening to only the Christian perspective of it.

Is a fetus a human being?(Directly from a sermon I heard)

Size – Some of the biggest arguments on why a fetus is a not a human being is that it’s small. Are large people more human than small people

Level of development – Some would say a fetus is not a human being because it is not developed and has no intelligence or awareness. Would you say that a 4 year old girl is less of a person than a 14 year old girl? The 4 year old doesn’t even have functional reproductive organs so is she less of a human? Could we say anyone who’s smarter than us has the right to exploit us because he’s more human? How can we rule out the human being a fetus just because the development doesn’t match ours?

Environment – Because the fetus isn’t born, does it make it not human? How does where you are have bearing on who you are? Do you stop being yourself when you walk into your kitchen? Does it make you more human? Does walking down the stairs change who you are? If not, how does a journey a couple inches down the birth canal transform a nonhuman tissue blob into a protectable, precious human life we ought to protect?

Degree of Dependency – Since a fetus is not viable, does it make it not human? If being independent of everyone or everything is a factor in being human, we’ve got a big problem. People depend on insulin, pacemakers, etc and without them they’d die. Does that make them any less human?

None of these points are morally relevent. A fetus is a human just like me, who types this up is human. It’s hard for me to get my mind around this, however slowly but surely, God is showing me it through and through.

These aren’t even from a Christian point of view really either. The separation of church and state should not matter here as it should in same sex marriage in my opinion.

I heard a woman, Kathy Sparks, who used to work for an abortion clinic (the Hope Clinic, one of the first abortion clinics) as a registered nurse before she became Christian speak also and abortion clinics run like a complete business. Counseling involved using a lot of open ended questions to see what was driving the desire for the woman to have an abortion. And once they would find this out, they would magnify this problem instead of trying to relieve it. By the end, 99 out of 100 girls choose to have an abortion.

In the cleanup room, they would have a toilet bowl that had no lid or flusher and was constantly flushing. What would happen is they would do abortions on women 14, 15, 16 weeks (3.5 – 4 months) pregnant but they couldn’t send the fetuses to the pathology lab because they would get in a lot of trouble. They would just drop the fetuses in the bowl and the fetus would just go down to the sewer system. They did this everyday.

It took 8-10 minutes to do the abortion and then have the nurses clean up and sort everything up for the next person. If it took longer than that time, doctors would get real mad because they were losing money (as there would be up to a 5 hour wait) and they would have to stay longer than they intended too.

A doctor didn’t want to do deliveries anymore because he could 3 abortions and make the same amount of money and not have to wake up in the middle of the night to do it and so he decided that he didn’t want to deliver and decided that it would be easier and more affluent to just kill them instead.

Some view abortions as something that helps people who can’t raise and afford babies, however in her 20 years working in abortion clinics, she never once saw a doctor give a reduced price, or have it done probono.

I really think abortion is wrong but I am also writing this to see what the other side is, since I do not know it as well. So feel free to comment and post what you guys thing and feel about this controversial issue.

I feel like no one is going to answer though, haha but that’s fine.

HH

Snow

Just in case you guys didn’t know, I hate snow…

-HH

Christmas spirit

Lately, I’ve been cracking jokes about how oooooolld I am at the age of 23.  It consists of two parts whole-hearted joke and one part regret.  So, there is at least some truth to it.  I guess it has something to do with how I thought I would be at a different place when I turn 23.  I mean this is my mid twenties!  I assumed that I would be on my way, or well in the midst of, being a yappie.

What’s a yappie you say?  Well, I’m glad you asked!  It is similar to a yuppie, also known as a young urban professional.  However, here’s the kicker, it stands for young asian professional.  I know, I know.  It is catchy.  But, its trademarked, so don’t even think about using it without giving credit.  But otherwise, feel free to spread it like wildfire.

On the other hand, it’s all good.  Although I might not be where I would have thought, I am definitely not where I was.  When I was younger, this time of year would bring about feelings of self-pity and embarrassment.  Self-parrassment, if you will.  See, my family has never been Christian.  Thus, Christmas was rarely celebrated at the Tung household.  The whole, not believing in Christ deal, makes it hard to celebrate “Christ”mas.  Actually, few know, but Christmas means “Christ more” in Spanish.*  Hence, when everyone else had lights and trees and presents, I had my foolish no-present, empty handed self-pity.

But there was a singular time when my Dad gave the Christmas spirit a shot.  This is when the self-pity turned into self-parrassment.  As you can imagine, having never done it before, my pops was not actually any good at Christmas decorations.  He did not enjoy the fortune of watching generations before him practice the art that is Christmas lights.  So, instead of this beautifully luminescent home, we had a hot mess.  Let me tell you.  First, he didn’t buy quite enough lights.  So when he tried to string our front lawn’s tree, it went up the trunk and only the west side of the leaves.

Then, we never figured out how people used extension cords for their bushes.  So he decorated the bushes, but only the ones near the window.  That way, you saw our bush precisely and evenly circled with multi-colored lights.  But, a stray set of bulbs would flow away from the bush, into a window.  If you walked inside, you’d know that it lead from the window, straight into our wall socket.

Meanwhile, this would be fine, if my house was tucked away in a remote part of town.  But as luck would have it, it sat on the corner of the main road that everyone, north of my high school, took to get to class.  Yessir, that’s right.  I was the kid with the half tree and the bush on a leash.

But, that was then.  And now, I’m 23.  My self-parrassment has melted away.  It has very clearly been replaced with fondpreciation.  If you had guessed that word meant fondness and appreciation, then whew, you are goood.   I see now, that my dad did that for the family.  He gave it a shot because he thought we would like it.  He put away his old ways and ventured something new, strange, silly, and odd.  For us.

Also, I now know, that even if someone else’s family has the largest most excessive display of decorations paired with highly elaborate gifts and traditions, their memories of Christmas are no sweeter than mine.  Because, at 23, I can tell you that the Christmas spirit is not about what or how your family celebrates, but that you have family to celebrate.

All in all, I’m not a yappie like I thought I’d be, but I am glad that I am wiser than I was before.  So, I’m good.

*Just kidding, jeez you really thought it meant that in Spanish? a hyuk hyuk hyuk : )

-frankiet