"No, you're always the yin."

Helen, Sharon, and I had a dinner conversation that only friends of many years can have. After a bottle of wine and many updates, stories, and healthy debates about each of us (we took turns), we came to a realization. We are each the yin and the yang in our individual lives.
Clarification: Yin is Black, Yang is White. Ok so turns out you can't make tables in Blogger. Whatever, I used Paint. Here's how you read it:

X is the _____ for Y.
(i.e. Helen is the Yang for Sarah.)

Sometimes we are neither the yin or the yang, but the neutral curvy line in the middle. But turns out, according to those fools, I am always the yin. So what if I'm opinionated and expressive!! !! !

Something I realized is that we will always, in the end, do whatever the heck we want. Regardless of how much scolding the other two will do, we will still follow our own gut. But we need the debate, differences of opinions, pointing forks, muted yelling, and frustrated expressions. It's how we keep each other in check and make sure that even if we are going to make huge mistakes in our lives, at least we are prepared for the consequences. Thanks guys for not saying "I told you so" but instead cluing me into the realities of this world.

I have two remaining questions:
1) Were our lives always this interesting and ironic, or is this a product of being 20-somethings?
2) What do the dots represent in our little analogy? Maybe that we always seem to agree and disagree at the same time?

Urban Education

I hate No Child Left Behind. Good in theory, horrible execution. Here's to hoping:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/us/politics/16educ.html

my awesome manager

did i ever tell you guys that i have an awesome manager? really, the best in town. she's so sweet and supportive. sharon met her and said, "she's a good manager, i can tell."

i found out today that she goes to church on sundays :). we were talking about how it's really important to marry a guy that shares the same beliefs. wow! so in sync.

she told me to check out this church called the journey. helen, and others, you wanna go? it's at the regency center at 11.

When I was your age...

Oh the many things we'll be able to tell our children...

• Walkman
• CD Players
• Boomboxes
• Floppy Disks
• Library Catalog files
• Line-by-line printers with holes on the side
• VCRs and VHS tapes
• Landline phones
  

Song of the Month!

new song is posted on the right sidebar. scrolll down a little.

Mad by Ne-yo

My friend Joyce Jung Kwon, an amazing jazz vocalist

A blurb from her site:

There are 2 kinds of persimmons: the crisp 'dan-gam' that grows in hot weather and the squishy 'hong-si' that ripens in cooler regions. Joyce wondered why she wasn't ripening into a 'dan-gam' even while studying voice, jazz and music theory at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. But since relocating to Berkeley in the cooler bay area, she has realized she is not meant to be a 'dan-gam' and has started to ripen deliciously into a 'hong-si' of a musician, finding her own unique voice.

The List: Age 25

*EDIT: I thought of one more...

Here it is. Helen inspired me. The 8 things I want to do before I'm 25-years-old (it would've been 10, but I couldn't think of any other big goals):

1. Visit Thailand
2. Learn Spanish
3. Do something, anything! in microfinance or non-profit
   
4. Fully and regularly donate 10% of my net income
   
5. Take the GMAT
6. Be a size 4 again
   
7. Commit to a church that I love
8. Live in a different city
9. *Go to the gyno. Not because I want to but because I should.
   

I have 3 years, 2 months, and 12 days.

Reinvent yourself

an excerpt from my private blog:

yesterday i went to a info session for the Haas MBA program. MBA programs look for the typical stuff: work experience, gpa/test scores, interview, extracurriculars...wait, did they just say extracurriculars?? uhhh i thought once we started working, that's all we were supposed to do.

you know what i've been doing on the weekend? NOTHING. you know what i do when i get home? NOTHING. a couple weeks ago i realized i have NO hobbies. really. i hang out with friends, i write in this blog, i occasionally go to church (though i am trying to change that), i don't play sports or even exercise regularly, i go out at night, i go to holiday and birthday parties, i don't even travel enough to say i travel. i have been meaning to volunteer, but never got around to it. same with full circle fund. i like to do nothing. a lot. i like to sleep. a lot.

so here is the reality: people like me, with no hobbies and that like to lounge around in her sweatpants all day chatting with friends online or uploading the new britney spears album onto her phone, do NOT get into good MBA programs. and while that makes sense...crap!

this means i need to reinvent myself. i need to rekindle my passions and find a way to get involved while still working. burnout? maybe, but hey i'm young, so i can take it. but boy will i miss lounging in my sweatpants all weekend...maybe i'll start next year...

Drafts

I just noticed a bunch of posts that are stored as draft. So with 57 minutes remaining on my laptop, time to publish those suckers.

Jen, I promise I will write about you someday :)

- addition -

So now that I've finished all of the draft posts, I realize that they save in the order they were first drafted, and don't publish as a new post. Here they are my small audience that may or may not care:

3/17/08 my testimony
3/27/08 Zephyr Cafe
4/9/08 Live consciously. Live responsibly. Live well.
4/10/08 On gambling
4/10/08 The Bucket Incident
8/14/08 treadmills with tv's
8/27/08 sometime in the fall ...oh i guess it was still summer...

next i will have to add all of my old xanga entries before xanga cancels my account!