주여ㅕㅕ

one more day in the valley.
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friday:
- home. read. i think i just started getting used to the valley and learning to not be restless here.
- got restless, back to topanga.
- hiking with ken, andrew, and jean doh. rite-aid ice cream afterwards — triple scoop for 2 bucks is all good :)
- home and read for a long time.
- sleep early for korea vs. greece tomorrowwww

koreaa.
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saturday:
- wake up early and watch soccer game with my mommy. umma got really excited ahaha.
- last home cooked breakfast until much much later :(
- back to berkeley..

goodbye la.

one of the coldest beach experiences of my life. it doesnt top my crappy beach experience at that wind and surf beach in sd though, because that was just too funny.

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sunday:
- church at whpc. good to see old faces.
- wendys lunch with ken and andrew.
- run. i dont want to do 10k anymore ahaha.
- early birthday bbq at my house. ken, isaac, tim and allen came yayy.
- almost enter severe state of depression because of the lakers game
- headed to tims house with isaac, watch 2006 worldcup highlights, sleep.

asd

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monday:
- wake up next to beautiful isaac
-pick up daniel oh then grab quick mcdonalds breakfast before heading to six flags
- magic mountain! the only rides i rode were x2, tatsu, logjammer, and goliath. riding logjammer with justin, johnny and suzanne was funny ahaha.
- after six flags, a couple of cars went to sootbulgui in ktown for all you can eat gogi. it was only $13 but the quality was really really good. i think we ate for 2 hours or so.
- tim, isaac, daniel and i went to boba time to get some patbingsoo and boba afterwards. they have some bomb patbingsoo and even bomber boba ahaha.
- come home, watch a movie, help my brother with a project, watch another movie, sleep super late.

my life has truly changed that i would spend my 21st birthday at magic mountain with a bunch of church friends.
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tuesday:
- wake up (not next to beautiful isaac)
- get ready and go to beautiful isaacs house
- head to ktown with isaac and isaacs umma. soon tofu lunch at keungama. it felt good to eat something other than all you can eat gogi.
- make several stops in ktown looking for 2010 worldcup shirts. it is so hard to find a tshirt. eventually ended up buying the tshirts at ktown galleria.
- back to the valley, hit the gym, watch lakers. fisher.. fisher. yeahboii.
- read, sleep.

today i was sleepy.
_____

wednesday:
- wake up, then beautiful isaac came over
- headed to dustins house and helped finish washing his civic ahaha.
- todai for lunch. tim came a little later. for sure the crepes are the best part of todai.
- nap :)
- read
- gym!
- late night wendys run, read, sleep.

ahh only a couple days left in the valley! i have to play harder than ever before!! gogogogog!!!

still kind of restless.. i really cant stand being alone hahaa
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tuesday:
- wake up at 2:30pm
- hit the gym with ken –
- late lunch/early dinner at el torito where i was tripping out ahaha
- dodgers stadium!! with ken, ken’s cousin, tim, john, isaac. dodgers vs. diamondbacks — that must have been the slowest game in the history of baseball.. the scoreboard was all zeroes until the bottom of the 11th inning, dodgers win with a homerun yayy. oh yeah, there was this one player on the diamondbacks named jackson, and everyone was bagging on him the whole game. “hey jackson, you want some icecream?” “throw the ball at jackson!” it kind of sucked for him, but i have to admit it was funny ahaha.
-  we all headed to kens place for isaacs 21st birthday. happy birthday isaac!! isaac and i had 2 redlines each to celebrate. watched avatar at kens house, then started playing some card games. poker, old maid, mafia. isaac is a super cheater ahaha.
- we talked for a long long time.. until the sun came up. one by one, people started falling asleep and it was basically me and john talking with isaac trying to fall asleep but being unable to because of the caffeine ahaha. isaac and i headed back to my house where we talked some more. tried falling asleep but couldnt, the two of us drifted in and out of sleep for about two hours.

i had lots and lots on my mind. still thinking.
_____

wednesday:
- wake up next to beautiful isaac
- isaac and i got ready then met with the other guys at kens house. sea food buffet for lunch in encino for isaac birthday. the food was pretty good. funniest thing was that we sang happy birthday to isaac, then right after, we all hear tim go “oh, appa!!” and tims dad was standing right behind tim ahaha. apparently tims dad works in encino and likes going to that buffet for lunch.
- drop off tim in moorpark then talk to ken for a while.
- haircut next to greenland market.
- ken wanted to go running but something inside me (probably the 2 redlines and 2 hours of sleep) just said no ahaha.
- brush up on my phone skills. play at the park like a little kid. ok bye bye shigan.

wahh.
_____

thursday:
- wake up with beautiful isaac at my front door.
- pick tim up in moor park then drop by a starbucks near his neighborhood.
- back to myplace for dt’s.. tims sister and daniel oh came to my house too.
- yummy lunch that my mommy cooked for us. she made some spicy noodles that she got from a cpk recipe. it was really really spicy but yummy.
- drive to san diego in tims new highlander. 101 was trafficky but whats new.
- arrive in san diego in 2.5 hours around 5:00pm. we had a little time to kill so we decided to go to the beach. we looked up “beach” on tims gps and the closest one was the wind and sea beach or something like that. the beach sucked LOL. there must have been 20ft of shore. but we still made the best of it ahahah. despite the crappy beach conditions i must say that was one of my funnest beach experiences.
- we were on our way to mike parks place to watch the game but got a call from mike kang so headed over to mike kangs place. we helped mike and joanna move in until dinner time.
- BOMB dinner at lolitas. that place seriously has some delicious burritos and carne asada fries. horchata to put the icing on the cake. oh yeah jason lu met up with us here too.
- back to mikes place where we continued to help mike and joanna settle in. it took 5 berkeley undergrads to put together one futon.

sadly, my productivity for this one day was greater than my productivity for all of summer thus far.
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friday:
- wake up next to beautiful isaac.
- price center in the morning where we did dts and ate dt with the team. my last dt with mike kang. maybe.
- prayer walk around the ucsd campus. the campus definitely has a different feel from the berkeley campus. ran into gloria.
- got a brief history behind the ufo looking sd main library from lem. apparently, the library is supposed to be a tree in the middle of a garden. from birds eye view you can see a serpent made of tiles in the garden. the message being conveyed is that we live in a broken world because of the fall and what we need to turn to is the tree of knowledge. how do we know that these biblical references are actually legit? there is a sculpture of miltons paradise lost. pretty clear. we got to see where bible studies and sunday worship services would be held. sunday worship services are held in what would be equivalent to the bears lair ahahah.
- lunch at the price center again.
- mikes place where we helped him settle in. finished everything but the kitchen.

- back to ucsd for the very first set-up for the very first bible study. i had the honor of playing “finger bass” on the keyboard for the very first friday praise band. i guess god redeemed my years of playing piano with this moment ahaha.
- lem gave a message on the alabaster jar. it was a familiar message but no less powerful than the first time i heard it.
- we went to lems place for post friday bible study activities but we had to say our goodbyes before we could join in on any of the games.
- bye bye san diego!
- hello los angeles! dropped off daniel oh. isaac slept over. again.

today was pretty historic. im really glad i was able to witness the beginnings of our san diego church plant.

friday:
- cancel melrose plans, get acupuncture instead. what a steal.
- cant remember if i went to topanga (probably did), but on the way back got some in-n-out.
- gym!
- chill at home for a little then head to wvc for haiti benefit concert thing. it was definitely interesting to see all the korean kids in the valley again.. things kind of changed but they mostly didnt.
- midnight zuma run. it was really nice at the beach with a full moon and high tide. it was a lot brighter and warmer than the times that i went to zuma during winter break. trekked around the valley dropping off the kiddos, get home at 4:00am, do nothing for a bit, sleep.

saturday:
- wakeup.
- run! ran down valley circle. its very hot in the valley.
- shower then have a long long talk with appa.
- ktown for gogi with my family. mm, meat is so yummy. watched the lakers game at gogi jip.. yayy lakers!
- read my bible for a long time.

sunday:
- topanga, big surprise. when i am restless i: 1) call my friends, 2) go to zuma, 3) drop by topanga. planned on picking up a pair of jeans and maybe a button down but ended up with neither. i did get more yangmals and wifebeaters though.
- quiznos for a late lunch/early dinner.
- run! running down valley circle again.
- i resolve to overcome my restlessness and not go anywhere tonight. in fact, im going to do more than passively resist my restlessness by just sitting at home — im going to read my bible!!
- isaac came over around 10:30pm to just chill. ken got back from sd and beelined it to my house ahaha. then john came over too. yayy 2525 reunion at my place.
- we ended up watching troy — i never knew how funny that movie was until i watched it with my roommates ahahah. we had a good laugh over trying to see which characters match our personalities the best.

this is the breakdown:
john = agamemnon, the power hungry king who wants to take over all of greece. in the end, he is killed by briseis, the princess of troy ahaha.
me = menelaus, agamemnon’s burly brother who loses his wife helen to the pretty boy paris. engages in battle with paris and defeats him fair and square, only to be felled by the mighty hector. menelaus was undoubtedly the hero of the movie.
isaac = paris for obvious reasons.
ken = king priam, the kind old king who loved his city and his people and remained faithful to it until the very end.

- ken went home early (which means 3:00am LOL) because he was tired from driving back up from sd. john and isaac ended up sleeping over — it was like oven in my room aahahah. we talked for a while, ended up sleeping at what was probably around 5:30am. i am thankful for my friends  :)

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i think a part of me (most of me, actually) just drives around aimlessly hoping to relive the past. blah. sometimes it feels like my life is on replay.

aish. i need to bust it out, give my stupid thoughts a smack down, and be grounded. spend time reflecting, journaling, praying, and reading the word. i dont have time to be like this, i need to build character! gogogogo!! GOGOGO!!

monday:
- arrive in north hollywood at 6:10am. greyhound was extremely uncomfortable to say the least
- chill at starbucks until ken picked up the 4 of us (john, tim, isaac, me)
- talk to mommy for an hour or so then knock out on the ground
- wake up at 3:00pm, return my motorcycle jacket at topanga cycle gear :(
- quick stop at topanga mall for absolutely no reason — i think i just feel compelled to go there because i spent so much time there during highschool
- gym! every break i resolve to go to the gym since i dont have time to go to the gym during the school year.. but i always end up stopping after going a couple of times. im lazy ahaha.
- yummy dinner then talk to umma and appa for a long time
- wake up hangyul at 10pm.. hes the same as i was in highschool ahaha. basically he works long into the night and only sleeps a couple hours, then takes a long nap after school and starts working on homework after waking up.
- help dongseng with student body elections campaigning stuff. stayed up until the sunrise making little necklace tags for my brother but its ok because its the summer of servanthood.

tuesday:
- wake up at 2:00pm.
- gym! im gonna run 10k (6 miles) again this summer so i thought it would be a good idea to train. its too bad i got tired and stopped running after 2 miles ahahah.
- meet up at pacific theaters in winnetka with isaac, tim, john, and allen to catch the 8:10pm showing of robin hood. i thought it was an ok movie.
- read a little, ended up talking to appa for a while. sleeeep.

wednesday:
- dt with ken in the morning
- lunch at pho so 1
- topanga mall again. i ended up buying 3 more v-necks in the same colors that i already own — black and white and grey. also, the only clothes i was interested in looking at were all different brands of blank white tees even though i already have a wardrobe full of white tees ahaha. my fashion sense has been decreasing exponentially upon my entering college.. or maybe its just berkeley. or maybe its fashionable to wear blank white tees.
- yummy dinner again. i really missed being pampered by my mommy and having all my fruits cut for me and arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner on cute little plates with fruit decorations ahaha.
- food coma, knock out for a couple hours. wake up, then wake my brother up LOL. oh yeah, found out my brothers gonna be student body president yayy good job ryan!!
- talk with appa, sleep.

thursday:
- morning dt at northridge borders with john, isaac, tim
- bomb lunch at stonefire. living costs (i guess just food costs) are so much higher in berkeley!
- back to northridge mall with tim and isaac just to hang out
- dropped off isaac and tim. i was all happy while driving tim home because i thought i would be the first one to visit tim’s home in moorpark, but all the guys had already gone there except for me LOL.
- topanga mall (i may have a physical dependence to that place) and picked up a pair of running shoes
- gym! watched the earlier parts of the lakers game while running/working out
- ate dinner and finished watching the lakers game. artest was all good today ahahah yeahboii
- read, sleep. well, i guess it turned out to be a 4 hour nap.

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i suppose the last 30 minutes i spent updating my blog was semi-productive.. at least ill remember what i did for the first 4 days of my summer back in the valley ahaha.
lets see. tomorrow im supposed to go to melrose but knowing myself, ill probably just end up at the topanga mall again ahaha.

this past week went by pretty quickly.. only two more weeks left! i know its gonna fly by — especially with the sd trip and magic mountain and other activities..
i should spend my time wisely.

being at home always gives me mixed feelings.. lord, make straight my paths

sunrise part 109813 yeahboi

anyway, spring break started friday morning for ethan, john, ken, isaac and me. we decided to go to monterey because.. yes.
on the road. can you tell the difference between the relationship between isaac and john and the one between isaac and ethan?

we dropped by ethans place in fremont on the way to monterey to pick up his car. we were warmly greeted by his mother who gave us enough asian crackers and drinks to last us for the rest of the semester even though we were only going on a one night trip.

john was harassing ethans poor dog the whole time we were there

just my usual calm, composed, contemplative, not crazy self.

after a couple hours, we arrived at monterey! our first stop — monterey aquarium!!

we saw a bunch of cute cuddly animals along with some not so cuddly looking things..

…but one thing none of were expecting to see was this.. ISAAC!!

now you may be wondering.. how did isaac end up at an exhibit at the monterey aquarium? these next few pictures illustrate isaacs life story up until the moment where he now peacefully resides at the monterey aquarium, where he is being pampered by various bird trainers and janitors.

ahoy maties!

we are gangsta

basically, we started getting really hungry after looking at all those sea creatures, so naturally, our next stop was dinner!

dinner was relatively expensive but it was all worth it. ill post some before/after pics right here:

after dinner was a nice walk along the pier. we were working on our pier relationships.

the only difference between these two pictures is that john and i swapped positions ahaha

normal vs nick: how people take photos at a pier. i dont know what possessed me– actually i do know i was just being myself– but i was inspired from watching band of brothers with the guys while sleeping over at steve suhs place

we got back to our hotel which was about a 5 minute walk from the pier and knocked out for several hours haha. we ended up going out for a stroll along the shore.

closed off the night by making several stops at various supermarkets in order to buy junk food and ordering 3 pizzas at papa johns. oh yeah, this was during the wee hours of the morning.

next day, we had an exciting time kayaking! this is a picture of us chilling on the rocks.

isaacs bears an uncanny resemblance to our governor arnold. particularly around the arms.

just call me ahab — if you wanna see moby dicks dorsal fin, its hanging in my room right next to my baptism picture

ken– a regular at modeling agencies

word on the street is that there is a tribe of 3 beastly warriors who live among the scattered islands of monterey

good thing they heard the gospel message!

this pretty much wrapped up our adventure in monterey, and we took a scenic route home driving along the 17-mile drive and then highway 1. the 1 was super windy and annoying. oh yeah, we ate dinner at nepenthe on the way down, which is a fancy restaurant on a cliff overlooking an amazing view of the oceanside. the only thing we could afford was burgers ahaha.

john the photographer.. we were joking around that he should work for national geographic

monterey was all good!! im thankful for the people in my life who make these kinds of things possible.

lets see. whats new with my life.. oh yeah, last week i realized something. life is infinitely more chill when i dont have midterms or projects. this past week i didnt have much work to do since i finished my wave of projects and midterms. i guess i didnt do anything special with my time other than read but it was such a nice change of pace not to be working on a project 2 days after the due date haha. often times (actually its mostly when im working on projects) i get really jealous of other people because their majors seem so much more chill, but im pretty sure that even if i were a *insert easiest major you can think of here* major, i would still be complaining about something whether its how bad my professor is, how much my project/paper sucks, or something completely irrelevant like berkeleys random weather. my “grass is greener on the other side of the field” mentality is all bad. i hope being an eecs major and getting owned every semester will amount to something other than a significantly shortened life expectancy. i mean come on.. some character development, some sort of spiritual insight, maybe even a job. . ahahaha i guess its no bad

so basically im at haas updating my blog instead of configuring this new server that my boss is gonna be using ahaha. looking back at the past year that ive been working here, i am seriously amazed that there hasnt been a single instance wheni pressed an “ok” button and then made the haas school of business blow up. there have been some pretty close calls, but at least as im writing this entry while sitting in my cubicle in s260, haas is still standing. unless my boss no longer wants this to be the case, i suggest he looks over my server verrry carefully before he decides to use it ahaha. i think im about 70% settled on working here over summer as opposed to having an internship at _____ (if i even hear back ahah). my boss said id be able to work almost full time, and besides the good work experience, no travel time, and familiar environment, $18 * 8hours * 5days * 2months= bank.

lately (as in today and yesterday) ive taken a liking to banana bread. actually, its only because im so hungry after DTs and its just about the only edible thing to get on the way over to haas. inductive style DTs have been really good for me and i like having to study the bible and look hard for those kernels of truth, even though most times those kernels of truth are really obvious like in yesterdays DT when Jesus explained exactly what he meant in his parable of the sower where he talks about the 4 different kinds of soil ahahah. Course 101 has been going really well — meeting with Dennis at cafe Strada and with Jonathan at FSM  is so reminiscent of my meetings with Roy when i was a freshman. im so thankful that both of them have been so responsive.. i just hope im not negatively affecting them and totally backtracking on God’s plan to develop them as godly men hahah.

it looks like most koinonia guys are gonna be moving into dana house next year. it will be a year of much laughter, yelling, screaming, major warfare, and basically chaos, miraculously accompanied by spiritual growth. speaking of housing, steve and suzannes new place is baller status. i wish we could all just move into their place in alameda.

im done working for today, which means im done blogging. see you next month!

Our apartment has been growing even closer together this past semester. I dont think ive ever been so thankful for the presence of these brothers in my life. Its kinda crazy to think about how long weve known each other and how were still learning to grow. Im pretty sure that this is only scratching the surface of God’s plan for us in the depth of the relationships that we have with each other.

Speaking of God’s plan for me, my life right now is definitely not what i imagined my college life would be like in the past. I heard from Esther Cheng today that Virginia was telling her of how all the “valley boys” are on a different trajectory than we were on during junior high/high school days. Chengpi… ahaha. It still trips me out to think about how different my life is now. I imagine all the different things i was immersed in during high school and even during my days as a freshman.. one thing i know for a fact is that i would be enslaved to many many things right now, especially given my addictive, impulsive, and basically retarded personality. Im so thankful to God that He found me and turned my life around. My soul would be so much more tainted and my heart so much more divided than it already is if i continued to live life the way i thought was best for myself– a life of selfishness in pursuit of security and pleasure.

I am amazed that God chooses to use someone as dirty and messed up as me to serve Him. Im even amazed at the simple fact that im an upperclassman and that there are people who look up to me whether im aware of it or not. When i look at the kinds of ministry i serve/served in — freshmen ministry, joyland, interhigh ministry, elderly care ministry, praise band, leading course 101– i seriously dont know how in the world God can use someone like me to be his ambassador. I messed up pretty badly in the past, and one thing for sure is that im still not sin-free. Yet, God loves me. He doesnt turn his back to me, he doesnt look at me with disappointment, he doesnt give up on me. He just loves me. He still wants what is best for me and He continues to bless me with such a full and rich life that I would never have been able to dream of living. Its so paradoxical that the things that i thought would bring me happiness are actually things that would bring much pain into my life. Its even crazier to think that a life of sacrifice and obedience is what i long for now.

There has been a lot of struggle in my life lately. Im learning to have a humble attitude towards these challenges in my life, knowing that i need to struggle in order to grow. In a strange kind of way, i embrace the struggles. At least when im not hating it ahaha. Its like the pain of conditioning in order to be able to fully enjoy a soccer season. Its hard and it really sucks, but unless you deal with it, its gonna suck even more if you cant even run for a full 90 minutes and finish a soccer game. Im finding comfort in God’s promise that he will never throw something at us that we will not be able to endure (1 Corinthians 10:13). Something that Kevan Ho told me during our mission trip in Cambodia is that Christian life is about struggle.. but the secret is that there is joy in it.

There is so much truth in this.
I can only imagine what it will be like
when i walk by your side
I can only imagine what my eyes will see
when your face is before me

Surrounded by your glory
what will my heart feel?
Will i dance for you Jesus
or in awe of you be still?
Will i stand in your presence
or to my knees will i fall
Will i sing hallelujah
will i be able to speak at all
i can only imagine

i can only imagine..

I Can Only Imagine — MercyMe

this turned out to be a much more spiritual post than i thought it would be ahahaha.
bye bye everyone, time to go to bed so that i can wake up for church tomorrow.

oh yeah, just in case i forget, interhigh monthly 5 was today. we discussed the disney worldview.
also, i had the opportunity to talk to an element student today and the stance that our church has on dating.
i got to share a piece of my testimony.. i pray that God would guard his heart first and foremost, and that he would be able to see things clearly.