the happy wanderer

while reading for my history class…

I shut off the computer. for the first time in a long time. to fight off the temptation of IMing or doing something like what I’m doing right now. ….

And then my mind went through a series of very distinctly related thoughts.. it’s amazing how a.d.d i can be or if you want to put it in a euphemistic way.. how amazingly and unexpectedly the mind works and weaves through memories…

somehow the unusual closing of the laptop made me conscious of it so much (since it hardly ever happens) that it linked me to another computer-related memory…. (i guess?)

I found my former self, specifically the 13 year old me, sitting at the old desktop computer at my Aunt’s place in NY, because I didn’t have internet access at the time. We had recently moved into our apartment in NYC and I was already attending a tutoring academy in order to prepare for the SHSAT (Specialized High Schools Admissions Test) that would allow me to get into one of the top 3 public high schools in NY. But ofcourse, I didn’t even know that this existed until 2 weeks before… since the move to NY was such a last minute & completely unplanned, unthought-of event. 

This of course put me back into the mood, and my memories into a tone, that resonated during that whole period of my life… specifically the 3-4 years while abba was ill.

Then I recalled the actual day the exam was held… since I was fairly new to NY and wasn’t familiar with the Metro.. and because it was a really early exam (I think I actually woke up before the break of dawn…) my aunt and uncle drove me and my parents to Stuyvesant high school where the exam was to be administered. I remember I was a lot more nervous this day than I was for any other exam, including the SAT’s.

My aunt and uncle didn’t even have to take us there.. it was a bit unnecessary in the sense that itw as only an exam to get into a highschool. but of course they had high expectations for me, and they wanted to make sure that although the rest of our family’s lives turned down a road that we really had never thought of, hopefully, my highschool career wouldn’t be completely thrown off with all that had happened and was to happen…

Then I remember… ever so… bittersweetly… after all the nervousness and stressfulness of the exam… walking out of the building to see my mom and my fatigued and frail dad sstanding at the sidewalk across the street from the school building waiting for me. In the NYC cold. They didn’t have a car with them, so they coudln’t have gone home or some other place for the mean time.. so they just hung out around the school… waiting for me. It didn’t help seeing that they had waited for me the whole time (& just the sight of two little Korean parents standing together out in the cold) knowing that I had just Christmas Tree’d the last 20 questions of the exam because I ran out of time. (Soon after my dad told me it would’ve probably been smarter to just mark one letter, like C, for all 20.. to make it more likely to guess something correctly…. sigh lol) 

and after the big deal that was made of my highschool career and how my dad was so happy with me getting into Brooklyn Tech (although this was the worst of the 3… and I was aiming for Bronx Science or Stuyvesant) … the thought of how happy he’d be to have seen that I was accepted into Berkeley and have been attending this school for 3 years now occurred to me…

I remember my mom crying in the middle of the night when I first found out on-line that I had gotten accepted to UMich (this was before the other school acceptances) because of how happy  and proud my dad would have been and how he could take a breather or two up in Heaven now (especially because I seriously wasn’t expecting on getting into any prestigious schools..)

Yea… there’s a lot more that occurred to me… but  I feel like I could go on and on. and so I’ll just stop here for tonight.

Maybe, next time I’m reading or doing something and I’m right on the verge of really getting into the studying and focused mode.. another memory will pop up and I’ll just have the urge to log onto wordpress before the memory fades away.. just because I don’t want to forget it until who knows when it would resurface.. like this time

(current status, still stressed though bc i hate papers/even essays that others can so easily BS)

But. I have joy.

I realized that when I let go and let God, I don’t feel as trapped and restless. I know I’m still holding onto things.. still caught up in it all. but at least a little.. I feel like I got a glimpse of the joy that comes with finding my worth in God. ahhh. it is so refreshing.

(to be a downer betty) yea by this weekend.. or perhaps tomorrow. I could just turn back around and become preoccupied with the futility of this world. but. I’ll struggle to come back to God. Because He wants me. and He ain’t givin’ up on me.

smiling back on that time.. 

when my dad and i went into the city. it was super cold (nyc in the winter…. feels literally likes needles against your skin.) but he wanted to buy me ugg boots. (or.. bearpaw’s actually.. since ugg’s were so expensive) so in his state… he urged that we go to Daffy’s and get me a pair. since i wanted them for so long. and even in the midst of his need to rest and stay out of the cold… we went. and got my pair of boots. 

christmas season. i love it. and yet so many memories.. from those spent in ny..

[edit]: Tully’s is now playing Christmas music I’ll be spending my mornings before Spanish here~

아빠, 보고십다…

school is endless. and yet life is supposed to be so short and transient… i wanna see whats up. what’s around. not just around the corner. but on the other side. not because the grass is greener, but perhaps because the grass isn’t greener..