Tutoring. A job of contrasting forces. The dread I have the couple of minutes before it starts. Yet the pay is great! The minutes that seems like hours when my tutee just doesn't get what I'm saying. But the pay is great! The constant discussions I have with parents about their children, quelching their concerns and listening to their woes. All in all, the pay is great! You get the idea.

I have been tutoring since I was in the sixth grade. My first tutee was a girl in kindergarten. Her name was Yoo-Ri, which means "glass" in Korean. All throughout high school I had a number of tutoring jobs. Our family had a lot of financial problems. Since I was precious only daughter, middle child, and not really into details, I had no clear idea about what was going on in my family. Something about bankrupcy. Business not going to well. It's all really hazy. But, I did grow up with a sense that we weren't doing well financially, and it fostered a spirit of independence within me. I never wanted to ask my mom for money. I never wanted to seem like I want so many things. Like clothes, Barbies, Cabbage Patch Kids, stylish shoes, pierced ears, a pet with four limbs, and so on. I either had to deny that I wanted them or drop vague hints around my birthday or Christmas, so that it doesn't seem like I REALLY wanted these things. Anyways, in high school, I made enough money for allowance. This made me feel really independent and responsible, and I could finally just buy what I wanted. But the years of denial affected my shopping habits, and to this day I have problems buying what I want or knowing what I want to buy. (I'll go into this dilemma some other time.)

My tutees: Yoo-Ri, Janet, Jason, Daniel, Austin, Stacey, a guy from Whitney, girl from Gunn High School, Chimi, Colin, Parisa, and a couple more names I can't remember! I wonder where everyone is now. I wonder if they know how to read, how to conjugate Spanish verbs, how to utilize the pythagorean theorem, and how to read for meaning. Each tutee was special. I realized from my tutoring experiences that I really have a heart for female immigrant children learning English as a second language. They are the ones that need a tutor the most. They are the ones I can relate to the most. In fact, I was a female immigrant child who learned English as a second language! I am tutoring ME. I'm giving back to other people like me, opening up doors for them that they would not otherwise have known existed if I didn't show them. That's my tutoring story.

My husband has been playing Texas Hold Em poker nonstop since our Chicago trip.

Every once in a while I sit back and analyze my friendships. I go through stages of feeling like I have no friends. I had a lot of those waves in college, and they were much more painful for some reason. I think I'm going through one right now, as we speak, but I'm not sure. It's definitely not as dramatic as it was in college. I'm much more secure now as a married person. Having a constant companion really "settles" you down. And I'm totally thankful to have someone with whom I can share my life. BTW, Danny broke out in hives last night, and for the past 24 hours it's been non-stop taking cold baths/showers, feeling drowsy from the medicine, sleeping like crazy, and willing with all his might not to scratch the itch. I admire Danny's ability to not scratch so much. And, he's a very non-demanding sick person. When I am sick, believe you me, you will KNOW that I am sick.

Anyways, back to friendships. In a lot of ways, having a life-long best friend has given me both a sense of security and confidence, and also has handicapped me. Let me explain. Karen and I have been friends forever. BFF. From the moment I initiated trying to be friends, to the barbie adventures, to the horrors of adolescence, through the ups and downs, Karen has been my rock. It was nice having someone who always remembered my birthday (although I forgot her birthday once - oops!) and functioned in a lot of ways like a sister-I-never-had. So, she was always there. Even if we went to different high schools, she was still in Cerritos. I used to play a trick where, if our family went over to their house for a visit, I would pretend that I was sooooo tired, and couldn't get up to go home. So then, Karen or her sister would pipe up and say to my mom, "Why don't you let her sleep over??" And I would say, "What a great idea!!!" Or something like that, and I would end up sleeping over at their house, again. Literally their house felt like my second home (their HUGE house, might I add). Of course, as all relationships do, it took a lot of work to stay close as we got older. I remember once in high school telling Karen over the phone, "You know, we should bond more. I don't just mean a superficial bonding, but real covalent bonding, like hydrogen atoms." Do you remember this, Karen?

Anyways, because I was always secure about our friendship, I also tended to think that I didn't need to make other friends. But this was hard since we didn't attend the same school. And after a while, we attended different churches. So it became essential that I make other friends in other areas of my world, but I think I had difficulty. I didn't know how to make a friend other than Karen! In high school I can only think of a handful of friends that I had, and really only two friends that I actually hung out with on a regular basis. I buried myself in my studies and extracurricular activities, and I was hard-core church girl. My weekend was basically church. I didn't go out and socialize, I wasn't invited to parties or birthdays, and being a major homebody didn't help at all. So then Joe Kwan says, "But you were homecoming queen," indicating that I must have been popular and that I must have had many friends. All I can say is that I think I was very public (Colorguard and Christian club leadership), and half my school was either on band or in Christian club. Plus, it was a support-the-underdog, the one in touch with the masses, the one that wouldn't normally be nominated but seems kinda quirky kind of thing. So that's my story.

In college, I was never consistently secure about my friendships. Making friends was just very difficult for me. I know Karen didn't have a problem because when I see her college pictures and albums, she had tons of friends, and more importantly, a group of close friends. I kinda had that, but not really. Instead of being handicapped, I think Karen was more free to make other friends because she had a magnetic personality. We were both secure in our friendship, but whereas she felt free, I felt handicapped (for lack of a better word). I'm not saying that I had no friends! By all means I'm not saying that Karen was the cause or that it was her fault that I was a dork. It's just, I felt insecure about my friendships sometimes. It would go in waves. I would be perfectly happy, and then boom, totally doubtful. But I learned a lot about friendships in college. I realized that different people express their friendship in different ways. I just had to accept that.

So it brings me to today. Karen and I are still best friends forever. :) BFF. We're in similar life stages, married and working professionals. We live in different parts of California, but talk to each other almost every day. I do realize that I need friends in the bay area. I recently went to Christina's birthday dinner, and was very impressed with the way she is able to make friends wherever she goes. She was my first friend at Stanford, and we're still good friends to this day. But I only see her a couple times every six months.

Since I got married, I've been becoming better friends with Danny's friends. I hang out more with his friends than he does with mine. I wonder why that is. But I'd like to have some good friends with whom I can "hang" in Sunnyvale. A peer with whom I can relate on a personal level. I now have church friends, which is good, but transitioning into hang-out everyday friends has been difficult. Normally I'm not this insecure and doubtful, but I go in stages. Maybe today I just had a lonely day. I don't know. This actually gets into the heart of why I like Friends the TV show so much. They have each other in the same city, they hang out together, make fun of each other, and grow with each other. I think I want that. I know it's kinda dumb, but I just think it would be nice.

***Disclaimer: If you are my friend and you're reading this, I still think you're my friend!!!! I'm just being stupid, I know. It's just how I'm feeling at the moment.

It's that time of the year again - Back to School! I've been coming into work every day this week getting the classroom ready for the kids to come back. Most of the teachers come in and out to prepare, but the time is flexible. Soon we will have our official faculty meetings. Do you know how much of a pain it is to decorate the bulletin board? I wish I didn't care about it, and just left it like it was the year before. But I care so much! I want to have a new look. A new design. My plan is to have a dark blue background, with a black tree and a full white moon. An owl will be perched on the lone branch, saying "Whooooo did this good work?" And then I can attach student work all around the board. It's my vision, but I don't know if I have the strength to carry out the vision.

I recently started rearranging things in my apartment. The bookshelf in the hall is now in the office. I organized more stuff in the closet. I put up some pictures in long-ignored frames. It's like I have this new freedom to go ahead and do everything I wanted to do since I got married. I spent too much time thinking about it, worrying if Danny would like the changes, and waiting for Danny's permission to do things. Hmph! I can't believe I thought that! Danny loves the changes, and he supports everything I do. Or, maybe my nesting instincts are coming out. Perhaps soon there will be little Dannys and little Jieuns running around!

Current books I am reading:

Best Friends, Worst Enemies
Surprised by the Voice of God

Current books Danny is reading:

The Future of Freedom
Song Lyrics

Ever since living with Danny I have re-discovered my love of reading. My husband seriously reads about a million things a day. From the moment he awakes, he has this ritual of opening the front door, getting the San Jose Mercury (after making sure that nobody will see him in his underpants), and reading a portion of it as he does his business in the bathroom. Eventually he'll read the whole newspaper in its entirety once he gets home from work. At work he proably reads everything from Fantasy Baseball, salon.com, CNN, movie reviews, emails, peoples' thoughts pages, jbb, and the list goes on. Well, thanks to him, I have started reading Newsweek. Maybe one or two articles per issue - I can't stand reading things that bore me to death (like when I read thoughts pages that deal with highly esoteric material...) And I read Harry Potter this summer, which was very enjoyable.

I had my first nightmare about school starting! It's this anxiety-ridden dream that involved me being late for the first two periods of the first day of school. I remember as a student I would be so anxious about the first day of school. It's the same for me as a teacher. Will my kids like me? Will I have things to say to them? It's hard to establish the groove of teaching. You never know how it's going to go until you're up there in front of the class trying out your so-called lesson plans. It's analogous to emceeing at Hanah and Eddie's wedding. I had no idea what to expect because it was my first time. But I planned with my partner, and made sure we had something to follow. Then, when we were up there, it was really all about going with the flow of the audience, gauging what they want to hear, and then just performing. In the end I had a lot of fun. Just like in teaching, at the end of the day, I feel like I finished a performance. And then I get ready for the next day, the next performance. Whew! No wonder teachers need a whole summer break to recover. :) Anyways, back to the dream. When I finally made it to school, my feet were so heavy that I couldn't run to class. I could only walk painstakingly slowly, while everyone around me were running to and fro. I really hope that my first day of classes will go well.