I will have seventeen kids this year. I already know six of the families because I had their older siblings! Have I been teaching for that long? This will be my fifth year of teaching. I definitely have a handle on things more now, but no matter how long you've been teaching, you still don't know what the first day of school will bring you. Serendipitous surprise or devastating disaster (practicing alliteration).

First day of school memories: (as a teacher)

1. Parent walking in with a video camera filming her cute little kid getting all her supplies out
2. A shy girl whose huge eyes welled up with tears because she was afraid to start third grade
3. Disruptive kid walking into the classroom saying, "Oh great. What are we going to do in here." (I should've known the minute he walked in to control the situation! He caused me trouble all year. If I run into a student like that NOW, I would make him walk back into the classroom with a better attitude, and keep doing it until he gets it right. But what did I know back then. He ended up getting suspended during the year for throwing a chair in my class, and by the end of the year he got kicked out of school.)
4. A girl who loved school that said, "I love school! I don't want to leave!" and gave me a big hug at the end of the first day.

I wonder how the first day of school will be this time. Will tell of all the drama soon...

I spoke too soon. Olympic gymnastics is actually not over. One more day of Carly Patterson and Paul Hamm. Tonight I watched men's pommel horse and rings, women's uneven bars and vault. There is an uncanny resemblance between Teng Haibin of China (gold medal winner for pommel horse) and my brother Giwoong. I was shrieking with laughter because I didn't know that my older brother had been secretly training for China's men's gymnastics team. :) I called home, and urged my family to watch and see if I was right. There were murmurs of agreement.

Anyways, on to my emotions. Lately I've been feeling a bit off. I can't quite explain what I mean, but in different social settings, I would go into it saying, "I'm not going to be so outgoing or weird and all-out today. I'm just going to act normal." There are many things wrong with this statement. First of all, the fact that I'm mentally preparing myself before a given situation says that I'm not being truly myself. Second, NORMAL?? Me?? When does that ever happen? If you ever see me "being" normal, you can be assured that it's all an act. For some reason I don't want to be the real me, maybe because I'm tired of taking initiative, tired of getting rejected, tired of being vulnerable to people. I'm not sure what it is. Third, being a natural extrovert, I receive energy from being with people. But when I go into a situation saying that I will not socialize as much with other people, I'm purposefully not receiving any strength or energy from others. And this affects me later on, after I leave the situation. Because I did not receive the proper amount of recharging from others, I go away feeling dissatisfied, and end up wanting to hang out with people more. But of course, my friends aren't going to be there for me at midnight or whatever ungodly hour I go to bed, so then I start to feel like I have no friends. Which is absurd. And I know this cycle all too well. I go through periods of feeling like no one wants to hang out with me, but really, it's because I start believing lies that come in when I try to ACT a certain way that is not ME.

Is this crazy? Does anyone else do this? Go into a situation saying that they will not be their natural selves. The mere fact that I do this is weird. And weirdness is a quality that becomes me. So in essence, maybe I'm still being myself.

Olympic gymnastics holds a special place in my heart. From "Nadia" the movie to Mary Lou Retton, from Amy Chow to my new hero Carly Patterson, I have thoroughly enjoyed watching gymnastics every four years. When I was younger I would get some masking tape and create a makeshift balance beam on our living room floor. I would perform my little heart out, and always end up getting a 10! As a 26-year-old, I still have to do cartwheels while watching Olympic gymnastics. I'm so glad I found people with whom I can share this itch.

Now that gymnastics is over, and my heart can beat normally again, the Olympics is over for me. I have no desire to watch anymore. Did you know that there is Olympic walking??? We watched it at midnight, and it was ridiculous! There's also trampouline flipping. So random.

I saw John Park get married this weekend. Woohoo! He snagged a good one. I've been to so many weddings, it's hard to really get into each wedding that we go to nowadays. I try really hard not to fall into that attitude of "what? another wedding??"

At this particular wedding, I really liked the message. The husband is called to love his bride, and the wife is called to respect her groom. It's a simple cycle; yet it's so hard. I'm sure Danny gets tired of loving me sacrificially, as Christ did for the Church. How can man be expected to do something so supernatural as giving up one's life for his wife? And yet husbands are called on that high of a level to love. I think this is why I really think that the guy should pursue after the girl, and show his love to her by reaching out. It's a picture of how God pursues us, and sacrifices Himself for us.

And I'm sure I'll get tired of respecting Danny all the time (although this has never happened). Through all his career pursuits (which are many and varied, mind you), all of his hobbies (including reading Spiderman comics on the computer, playing Fantasy baseball, Mindsweeper, etc.), and all of his decisions big and small, I'm called to respect him. I think I can do that. I'm willing to do that. I want to do it. In fact, I promised to do that! Every year I'm discovering exactly what I promised when I said "I do" on that June day in 2002. :) My main concern that day was to not ruin my make-up, which was moot because the make-up sucked anyway. I only scratched the surface of knowing what it means to be married.

The message this weekend renewed my sense of what a marriage is supposed to look like. Marriage is great!

I am such a ham. I know it. I accept it as a part of me. I used to take offense at people saying, "You're such a ham!" But that's all past me. I am a ham. Ham I am. We have to do this skit in Chinese class for the oral final. And I think some people would just prefer not to be up there. The teacher even said, "You don't have to act. Just memorize your lines." What??!! Not ACT? In a skit? I was pretty much shocked at what she said. But then I looked around and saw that many in the class were not cut from the same ham as I. In fact, most people would rather crawl under a turtle shell and stay there learning Chinese. Even if my tones are all off, and I'm the worst one in the class, I still love to get up there in front of the class to take in the spotlight. Ham I am.

New thing I learned about my Chinese. My teacher told me that my "r" sound was sounding a lot like "r/l", which is interesting because I was purposefully doing the "r/l" sound. Why, you ask? Because that's what I heard, so I was just replicating the sound. But, it turns out that I was hearing it wrong. So she corrected me to say it as purely "r" and not "r/l."

The thing is, I think being Korean-American helped me be flexible. If I were just Korean, I don't think I would be able to distinguish or even produce that sound. Or at least it would be really difficult. In the Korean language, there is no "r" sound. There's only "r/l" and pure "l" sound. That's why my mother had a terrible time saying "girl". It came out as "gull".

Because I learned English at such an early age, I have the ability and the ease to distinguish between the "r" and "r/l" sound. Thank you.

As much as I love learning Chinese and taking this class, I will be so glad when finals are over this Friday. And then on to LA for a wedding!

I've been taking a three-week intensive Chinese course for the past two weeks. I have one more week left, and I just have to say that I love it and I hate it. I love it because it brings me closer to my lifetime goal of TEN languages, it allows me to write a letter to my friend Carey in Chinese, and it takes me on field trips to Cupertino Village to interview various shopkeepers. I hate it because the the characters are so freakin hard to learn, I'm slower than the rest of the native Chinese people in the class, and I've been sleeping every day for the past two weeks at 3am doing homework or studying for a quiz! But I love it more than I hate it. So it's all good.

Another thing I LOVE doing is hosting people/having people over. Why, you ask? I grew up never really being able to ask my friends to sleep over comfortably. No extra room. Two brothers walking around styling their hair and flexing their muscles in front of the mirror. No real space to comfortably call it a "guest room". So now that we have this awesome two-room apartment, I totally want to share it with my friends and offer it to people who need a place to crash. Latest overnight guests: Christine, Barbara, Marshall, Carey, and Jean! I should have kept a guest comment book so people can sign and give us suggestions, etc. :)