mid-year goals

• Get back to physical status of last year before starting the new job, which has proven to be more sedentary and snack-filled.
• Brush up on sad state of French knowledge so as not to totally humiliate myself next year when we will get to go to Europe.
• Go to sleep earlier.
• Become neater. Start with desk-spaces, and expand to clothing and books.
• Start planning wedding in earnest.

I think the biggest obstacles for me have always been when:

• I get busy at work.
• I get sick.
• I get pissed off because my efforts are not bearing fruit at the rate I want them to.
• I get lazy. But this is really an extension of the above, because when I see results, I feel good and don’t tend to slack. But when I don’t see results, I fall into the “screw it all” mindset.

The wedding thing is a big problem because neither Seppo nor I have any real clue where to start. We actually have some friends we can trust who have a fair amount of knowledge about weddings (shoutout to Becky! heh), but I am sort of afraid to ask for real details because I’m afraid I’ll find out just how scary a workload it will involve to get hitched, and stress about it because there is so much going on at work too. It seems — and I know this is severely naive of me — that it shouldn’t take much to have a decent, small, wedding. But I already know this is wrong. I know just enough to know how ignorant I am. 😀

quarters

I spent the first quarter of my life as a pretty happy little kid in Korea. I spent just over the next quarter in the US elementary & middle school system. The next just-under-a-quarter was in high school and college. The final quarter, my current one, has been spent as a working professional. I’ve also spent a quarter of my life with Seppo.

Whoa.

The mind boggles. I wonder what the next 7+ years will bring.

—

I’m feeling pretty sick today. I woke up feeling really congested, cold, and tired, with a scratchy throat. But we are at a pretty crucial part of the project, so I dragged myself out of bed and came to work. For lunch, I ran out to a Korean restaurant to pick up some kimchi jjigae. For $6.95 plus tax, I got a large soup container of the stew, a little take-out box of rice, and a huge styrofoam container heaped with various sides, kept neatly apart by some saran wrap. Yay. Kimchi jjigae is the thing that I used to eat when I was a teeny tot when I was sick. The heat (both thermal and chemical) helps my chest feel a bit better and makes my nose run, which is gross but helps with the stuffy head feeling. I think I’m at this weird phase in my life where all I want to eat everyday is Korean food. I think it’s because I feel so tired and busy lately, and just want to find shelter in comfort foods.

—

Leading to feeling crappy is that I got a call from my sis yesterday. She said my dad has been hospitalized for some lung problem. She emphasized that it’s not lung cancer, but that they have not yet ruled out other cancers. He’s lost a fair about of weight in the last few weeks and has trouble breathing. He has asthma, apparently, and we are hoping that is all he has, and the rest is just due to some fleeting illness. They said that he should 1) quit smoking and 2) stop working, permanently.

My dad is someone who has always filled me with conflicting feelings, like many parents. I tell myself sometimes — pretty convincingly — that I simply hate him and want him out of our lives. This is easier when he’s being awful to my mom. It’s less easy when I see or hear about him suffering. The last five years have been absolutely brutal to him. He’s been through a lot and not due to his own dumb mistakes and failures, as it used to be. I just wish he could be somewhere where he is well-cared for and has time and means to find peace with himself.