There's No Place Like Home

It's been more than a week since I moved out of my summer sublet and returned back to NJ. I had time to meet up with a few friends and to enjoy the good ol' NJ stuff like Pier Village, the million malls that we have, and etc.

Just in case you want to see what my house looks like, here's a Google-maps picture:

I have lived in this house full-time for six years from 6th grade to end of senior year. Considering that I have only spent less than a third of my life in this house, I don't know if I can call this house my home. But at one point, I did. After spending seven or more hours at school (can't forget my after-school clubs), I always returned to this house, to my room on the second floor. I sat at my same desk to study, to do homework, and to use my computer. When it was time to sleep, I passed out on my bed, thinking about what I did during the day and running away with my imagination about a crush or something stupid.

And now, with college, I have passed that point. How so?

1. I do not have my own room anymore.

Due to circumstances, my older sister took my bed into her room (with my permissions). And in place of my bed, I have boxes of my baby sister's old clothes that my mom will be organizing and storing away... Sometime soon hopefully. These boxes, which are not mine, are invading my room. I want them gone! My private bubble of security and personal space bursted upon their intrusion. To be honest, I am possessive and it vexes me when I do not have full ownership of something that I should rightfully own. In this case, my room, which should only have my stuff, became just a room when my bed was replaced with foreign objects. This bothers me.

2. I sleep in someone else's room.

My bed, which I feel is the most important part of my room (since I love sleeping), is NOT IN MY ROOM! It is annoying that when it is time for me to go sleep, I have to walk out of my room and into my sister's room. The funny thing is that almost all of our furniture and their placement are almost exactly the same. So technically it should not really matter. But the only thing that I own in her room is the bed. Everything else - her desk, her books, the annoying clock that keeps me up at night - is my sister's. It sucks that my favorite activity of the day has to be spent in another person's room.

3. I feel very restricted by my dad's rules.

At Brown, I'm so used to leaving my dorm at any time of the day to go anywhere I want. Being back in NJ with my family means I have a curfew of 11 o'clock as that is one of the unwritten rules. I can probably push that to 12 o'clock or a bit later, but I always have to let my parents know when I am coming home. This rule was well-established since high school, when I started hanging out with my friends a lot more. When I asked why it was important for them to know when I'm coming home, my dad said that it lessened their worries. As you can understand, my parents, especially my dad, is very protective of their precious daughters (which is good but also bad).

But the point is that whatever my dad says, goes. I dare not go against my dad because I know he is a very scary man when he is angry. And the one thing he always says (in English, surprisingly) is: "If you live under my roof, you live under my rules."

4. No car equals no fun outside of my house.

In order to get to anywhere out of my development, I have to ask my parents to borrow a car. (No, my family is not wealthy enough to provide me my own car.) I honestly would rather walk to wherever I can if I don't have my own car. But, in a suburban area, that's not possible... I either wish that I had my own car, or that I lived in a city where I can walk or take public transportation.

To summarize, the general reasons for why I feel currently do not feel at home is because I do not have a comfortable ownership of anything in the house, and I do not have my freedom to do whatever I want to do.

College has made me change my definition of "home", or, at least, help me realize another definition.

Home used to be a house that I can return to again and again.
Home is now a place where I have my own independence, where I can create my own rules and live my life the way I want to.

I wonder if anybody else has felt this way about "home". What is your definition of home? Did your definition of home change ever? If it did, what did it change to?

<3, 
Margi



P.S.: In case people are wondering where I feel most at home, I would have to say that it is at Brown. And speaking of Brown, I cannot wait to go back there in a couple of days!

P.P.S.: Just because Brown feels more like my home than NJ, it does not mean that I love people at Brown more than people in NJ. I still love you, my NJ friends!!!

A Song for the Heartbroken

I have always been in love with the idea of being in love. Cliché, right? But it is very true.

It may have had to do with the my vast collection of Disney Princess movies that I watched over and over again when I was in elementary school. At the time, I had no idea what the characters were saying exactly as I did not understand English. But, I was still able to follow the plot through the help of my Dad. I always marveled at how Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and the other princesses were able to find their Prince Charming's in an instant, and how the princes wooed and fought gallantly for their princesses. I hoped to find the same kind of fairy-tale love and could not wait.

And thus, my search for the "prince" began early and I thought I had met my "true love" in 1st grade. His name was Oh Jong Won. He and I moved into the same neighborhood in kindergarten and played together a lot as a result.

But obviously, as I grew older, I learned that I will never be able to find "the prince". In my 20 years, I had countless amount of crushes, and somewhat above-average number of relationships as well. Every one of my encounters with the potential "princes" clearly failed, as I am single. But I cannot deny that with each failure, I learned something about those feelings I had - or dare I say, love.

Tonight, I want to talk about the hardest part of those experiences: the heartbreak.

My first real heartbreak was when I was dating someone in sophomore year of high school. I dated him for over 11 months, and I liked him enough to attempt to learn Starcraft. Although it was I who suggested to break-up, I was still very hurt. Why? I had broken up with him because I knew I should not be with anyone who suggests tossing a coin to decide to break up or not. And when he actually said that, I wasn't sure if that was a joke or not. So I took it as a serious suggestion, and tossed the coin. (I know, I was very dumb.) It was heads for "staying together", but minutes afterward, I realized that it was not right.

From that day, I stopped talking to him. I usually sat next to him in French class, but I purposely moved my seat away from his. At home, I listened to a lot of music. (It was ironic though, he was the one who got me into music in the first place.) Some nights, before I fell asleep, I cried because I was thinking about the relationship. It took at least a month to get over him.

With later break-ups, I did other things in hopes of mending my heart.

When I had excess access to alcohol, I drank a little too much, and I became very emotional. (Just a note, I am normally not an emotional-drunk, I am a happy-drunk.) I cried, clutching my heart and unable to face the others, talking about how it hurt so much to think about the ex, and how I missed him a lot.

I listened to a lot of "emo songs" and when there were songs that described what I was feeling at the time, I kept the song on repeat. I also started posting parts of the lyrics or YouTube links to the song on my status, hoping that the ex will get the message.

I talked to my friends a lot more than usual, in order to fill in the void that my ex left. (Thank you my lovely darlings!)

Although this does not do anything to help me get over the ex, I sometimes daydream about the ex suddenly realizing that he needs me and begging me to take him back. I watched too many kdramas and read too many shoujo mangas. Don't worry, I know in reality, that will never be the case. But until I truly get over him, I will always end up hoping that he will realize his mistake and fight to have me back in his arms. It is what I do, I dream.

To everyone who is experiencing a heartbreak right now: I'm there for you. Let me know if you need a shoulder to cry on or someone to give you a big, warm hug.

To those who have gotten over it: Congratulations, I hope that your next lover will be the one as close to your "perfect prince/princess" as possible.

To, specifically, me: Look ahead, not backwards. Take what you've learned from the past relationships and be more prepared for the next one.

I end this post with this song, a song for the heartbroken:



<3,
Margi

Chitter Chatter, Blah Blah Blah

Long time ago, a friend of mine said he was reading a book called The Art of Conversation.

To quote directly from a review by the Publishers Weekly (found on Amazon.com),

[Catherine] Blyth mixes personal anecdotes into a salmagundi of selected quotes from anthropology, history, literature, philosophy and pop culture to analyze and give advice on the dynamics of good conversation.

I have no idea if this book is well-written as I have never read it. The only reason I mention it is because it explores an aspect of human life that is sometimes regarded as trivial: conversations.

The formal definition of conversation is an "oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas" (from Merriam-Webster). But for the sake of this post, I would like to broaden the definition to include the "exchanges of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas" occurring through media other than our mouths.

The media we use to hold a conversation has evolved alongside the advances of our society.

I can only guess that in the Paleolithic era, humans must have used a lot more hand-gestures and body language to convey information, as languages may not have developed fully. I can almost imagine a conversation between two people being similar to a continuous game of charades. Once stable forms of spoken languages were established, writing systems must have followed suit. (No more uses of humans and their faulty human memories to deliver a message!) And with it, the possibility of holding a proper long-distance conversation emerged.

Of course, as we humans are impatient creatures, better and faster ways of communicating were sought after. Since letters, we invented other media of communication such as Morse codes, telephones, emails, instant messages, and texts. Ultimately, without having to physically face the person, we can hold an instant conversation. I almost want to say that certain technology was implemented for the sake of having easier methods of conversing.

We must also make note that our usage of words during conversations also changed over the centuries.

When classism (or any other ism's promoting hierarchy amongst humans) came to be, words and language played a part in keeping the social distance among people of different statuses. This usage is still prevalent today. In countries that still supports the monarchy - an obvious example being Great Britain - the commoners do not address the Queen as "Elizabeth II", but as "Her Majesty". Even in America, we do not call a professor by his or her first name, but by title and last name. But in contrast to “Your Highness” and “Professor”, certain words and phrases have lost their original purposes and were inevitably replaced. For example, “God’s blood” (or any word with “God” for that matter) used to be a curse word – pretty laughable, isn’t it? It is now replaced by several other words like “damn”, “shit”, and my favorite, “fuck”.

And what about new words that spring out of nowhere? Every year new slang words are made up and they are pocketed in our brain for later use. Often-used ones are even added to the dictionaries. (No I’m not talking about UrbanDictionary.com; I’m talking about creditable dictionaries like Oxford English Dictionary.) These words reflect the changes in our society, as for new things we need words to describe them in our conversations.

In a way, our need to converse has shaped society, and society, in turn, shaped the composition of our conversation!

Despite these changes, there are certain rules to a “good” conversation that should remain unchanged. For each individual, these rules are not the same but very similar. After all, some individuals enjoy listening a lot more than talking. Some enjoy talking one-on-one rather than being in a group setting. Again, I have not read the aforementioned book but I believe it to be Blythe’s opinions on such subject, not facts.

With that established, let me briefly talk about what I think drives a “good conversation”. (In the following section, I am assuming that one is holding a one-on-one conversation. Within a group, it would be very different.)

1. Questions

With questions as simple as “How are you?” to ones as complex as “What is the meaning of life?”, one can open up a discussion that can last hours. We may go on a tangent and start talking about a random topic unrelated to the question, but the point is that the question starts up the conversation. But it can’t just be a Q&A interview, where only one person asks the questions and one person answers. The questions must be asked by both people and both people must answer them. I think it is somewhat rude to let one person be the only one asking questions because it implies that that person is the only one interested in holding a conversation.

2. Being aware of the other person’s reactions.

As having a conversation involves multiple people (unless you are insane and you talk to yourself), it is important to act and react to the others. With modern ways of talking, it is hard to figure out how the other person is reacting as sometimes we cannot see the person’s body language, or hear the tone of voice. But you can still figure out what his or her reactions are through diction or hesitation, and hold a conversation appropriately. No matter how much a person tries to hide his or her original reactions, the person will subconsciously slip. If you are talking about something that is uncomfortable for the person, he or she may not react to it directly. But as the conversation goes on, there will be tell-tale signs. He or she may hesitate before responding, or they might not be as cheerful as before. So in that case, you should move onto a different subject.

3. Manners

I am only going to mention a few key manners that matter to me the most. If you have to leave the conversation, don’t just leave. Tell them that you have to leave. No reason necessary, just letting them know is fine. You should always be polite and respectful, and hold your tongue if you have anything bad to say to the person. I personally think it is unpleasant to say anything negative in general. It is unpleasant to even hear negative things. (But to be frank, I am guilty of saying such things, but I really try not to.)

4. Sincerity

One should be sincere in one’s interest in the other person. By interest, I do not mean romantic feelings. I mean the willingness to hear the other person’s thoughts and opinions. Personally, I can tell when someone is faking his or her interest in the conversation. How can I tell? Well, the signs that I look for are the lack of meaningful responses or the lack of effort from the other person to keep the conversation alive. If you don’t want to talk to me, then don’t. I’d rather do something else than to pointlessly keep talking to someone uninterested.

If I end up talking to you, I hope I will be able to keep to these four rules and follow yours as well. For the quality of the conversation for both parties, it would be nice if you could also respect my rules too.

Let me know what you think about the content of this post! I understand that that the post is not eloquent or strong as a writing piece, but I hope the subject was interesting enough for you to contemplate on.

<3,
Margi

Give Me Some Sugar, Baby?

Just yesterday, I randomly found an article on Huffington Post entitled: Seeking Arrangement: College Students Using 'Sugar Daddies' To Pay Off Loan Debt. I don't remember exactly how I came upon this article, but the 4 page story shocked me.

I recommend you read the article before continuing on with the rest of my post. But, for those of you who do not want to, here's the main jist.

Due to recent stress on the economy and the rise of college tuition, there has been an increase in sugar babies. A good portion of the new sugar babies are young women in college who desperately need money to pay off their student loans. One of the websites benefiting from this "sugar baby boom" is "Seeking Arrangement", a site that helps match sugar babies to sugar daddies/mommies based on described preferences. The article reveals how the website was founded, who makes up the population of sugar babies and sugar daddies using the site, and the intentions of those people. (As this article was posted in the Women's section, sugar mommies or male sugar babies are not mentioned.) It also discusses whether the exchange of money for companionship and/or sex between a sugar daddy and a sugar baby is prostitution, and how the secrecy of the "relationship" can create double/split personalities in the sugar babies.

A lot of thoughts ran through my mind when I first read it. 

"I feel terrible for the sugar babies!"

"The founder of the website is such a creeper."

"How comes the article doesn't talk about male sugar babies and sugar mommies?"

"Of course, this is prostitution."

"Would I ever do this in their situation?"

It seemed that the women involved in this arrangements only looked at their situation as a temporary one. While that may be true, I feel that the repercussions of their engagement in such a risky business will last for sure.

For example, will the women be able to have a normal healthy relationship with men afterwards? It's not just a one-time thing for these women, they have to go on multiple "dates" if they want to get rid of all their debts. For a woman to decide to become a sugar baby, she had to have geared her mind toward the idea that having sex for money is an acceptable act to some degree. Eventually, even after she is done being a sugar baby and start looking for a serious relationship, she may still have that mindset. After all, an idea accepted for a long period of time is often hard to reject. Having such attitude toward sex will most likely detriment any normal relationship for the former sugar baby may subconsciously treat the other as a sugar daddy. Rather than wanting a relationship founded on mutual emotional connections with the underlying give-and-take, she may just want a relationship where she is given materialistic gifts and money just for being his girlfriend!

Furthermore, if the women end up encountering someone dangerous, the lasting consequences may be the physical, emotional, and psychological damage of rape or even death. There could be another "Craigslist Killer"!!!

Do I sympathize with these women? Well, I am biased as I am also a woman in college, and I can acknowledge that desperate times call for desperate measures. I just hope that I am never forced to partake in such activities. 

So far, I only focused on the (seemingly helpless) sugar babies and neglected to address the sugar daddies. I do not have much to say about them except the fact that they are really creepy. In the article, a sugar daddy said in regard to the arrangements that "I guess I like the college girls more because I think of their student debt as good debt. At least it seems like I'm helping them out, like I'm helping them to get a better life." If he really wanted to help out the students, he would only donate, and not ask for anything else. Aside from their feel-good reasons for being sugar daddies, I can only suspect that their true reason is their lust for youthful women. I wish I can condemn them for "using" the women, but as the women are also using them for money, I have nothing to comment.

In this post, I have only poorly expressed my shallow opinions on the matter. So to further enrich your reading experience, I ask you, what do you think about all this? Would you ever be a sugar baby if you were strapped for money? Do you think it is excusable for women to essentially sell their bodies to pay back student loans?

<3,
Margi

Nom nom nom!

Food is essential to our lives. It is a source of our energy and a source of our belly's happiness. There's no doubt that a full belly is a happy belly. By the way, for all food-fanatics, here is a great site for you: http://foodporndaily.com/ Just remember to wipe the drool off your chin every now and then.

Food and I have never had a great relationship. What do I mean by this? First of all, it does not mean that I am anorexic or bulimic. Furthermore, it does not mean that I start yelling at my plate of food and it yells back at me. But it does mean that I have something to confess, something quite shameful and humiliating to confess as a 20-year old "grown-up".

I am a picky eater. I was picky since the day I was born, and am picky even now.

When I was living in Korea as a young child, for almost every meal, my mom prepared a bowl of rice and a bowl of soup for each person, and many delicious side dishes. I remember refusing to eat certain food despite my mom's wishes. If a side-dish had any kind of vegetables, especially mushrooms or tomatoes, I made sure my chopsticks never landed anywhere near the plate. If there were beans mixed in the rice, I would either pick them out individually, or pretend to eat them and spit them back out on a tissue paper. Fish was also a no-no. And the only fruit that I enjoyed were apples.

In the end, out of the seven to ten side dishes my mom served, I would only eat from two or three. How sad is that?

What is even worse was that I loved greasy, instant food. Eating a french fry from my McDonald Happy Meal was the best thing in the world! When my mom called Pelicana (a Korean version of KFC) to order fried chicken to be delivered, I thanked my mom and hugged her tight. Pizza was yummy too, as long as there were no peppers, no onions, no olives, no vegetables, period. And, of course, ramen noodles with egg (no vegetables) were the best!

My parents have tried to fix my terrible eating habits. My dad often commanded with his deep and authoritative voice that I needed to eat everything that my mom made. My mom fed me with her chopsticks and spoon, telling me to at least try it because it tastes good. Unfortunately, they didn't succeed.

Moving to United States did not do any good for my picky-ness either. The Korean food that my mom cooked looked even more gross now that I was surrounded by all the oily food that I want!

My aversion to, essentially, healthy food continued until college.

Starting college meant that I started eating more with my peers. By eating with my friends, I noticed how limited my choices were just because of my picky eating habits. And my plate of food was always less green than my friend's plate of food. It was embarrassing.

That was when I realized that I needed to try to eat from more food groups, to challenge myself to eat new food, and to just eat healthier in general. And funny enough, my taste buds were changing to fit my new goals. Now, when I eat a french fry from McDonald's, I can feel the grease dripping down my throat into my esophagus and clogging my arteries. And guess what, now I eat at McDonald's or other fast food restaurants only once or twice a year, when I have absolutely no choice. I have added onions, peppers, and other salad greens to my list of tasty vegetables. I also like strawberries, watermelon, oranges, clementines, and bananas! And I LOVE SUSHI!!! (Especially salmon ones)

In retrospect, the only reason why I never ate the vegetables, the fruits, or the fish was because they looked weird and I did not want to try them. I guess it's the fear of the unknown? Haha!

I have yet to try more food and discover new delightful tastes, and to completely fix my eating habits. But I am working on it, and by the time that I am a mom, hopefully I will not be picky and my children will not be as well.

Well, I hope your belly is always a happy belly that experiences a lot more variety of food than mine, and that this post didn't gross you out as much as the last one. Keke.

<3,
Margi

P.S. A special thank you to Yukun, for making sure that I have a healthier diet than I did before.

A Gush of Red

As I have said in my previous post, I had a couple of ideas about what I wanted to write for the next few posts... However, those ideas will be shelved for later as there is an important and unavoidable issue which has made itself present for me.

Lycanthropes, or simply werewolves, transform into terrible beasts once a month on a full moon.

Female homo sapiens, or just women, also transform into cranky "monsters" once a month.

With that said, I want to talk about my period. Period.

For those of you who are too squeamish to read about it, you can kindly wait for my next post. Or you can woman up (yes, I said woman up, not man up) and read it as it will contain some useful information. For those of you who are going through the same thing I'm going through right now, I feel you and I hope you eat lots of red meat, dried fruit, and other necessary iron-rich food.

So let's get some facts straight.

1. All women go through this, and the first period for a woman signifies that her body has matured enough to bear children.
   
2. Once a woman goes through her first period, her body goes through the menstrual cycle until menopause. An average menstrual cycle takes about 28 days and women have their period during 2~7 days of that cycle. (Wikipedia ftw)
   
3. When women menstruate, we're not actually bleeding pure blood (although a good majority of it is blood). We are shedding our uterine lining through our vaginas. And just in case there are people out there who actually think we pee and menstruate through the same hole, we don't. We have 3 holes: one for peeing, one for sex/menstruating, and one for pooping.

Yesterday, Mother-nature decided to punch me in the lower-guts to begin my monthly menstruation. Luckily enough, I was in the bathroom when I found out, so I did not ruin any of my clothes and my work chair was not stained with blood. However, with my "lucky" discovery came the excruciating pain, the cramps. Unfortunately, I am one of the many unlucky women who deal with cramps during their period. Mine always starts on the first day or second day of my period and ends after a day or two. I know that there are others who get longer-lasting cramps and some who don't get cramps at all. I'm envious of the latter but I am still grateful that the cramps do not last too long. But, of course, when I start feeling the cramps, I don't think about my situation that way because it feels like something extremely sharp is drilling my ovaries to smithereens and I just want to scream. During the two agonizing days, I chant my mantra, "I hate being a woman. I wish I was a man," and ibuprofen becomes my best friend.

Over the past 8 years, I have observed that my cycle takes about a month and I can easily predict when my period will be coming. There are also other symptoms that make it easier for me to prepare as I, without a doubt, have PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome) the week before it begins. I become very emotional, unhappy, and even depressed. When I had a boyfriend, the week before my period I'd become very unhappy with him and complain about my problems with him to my friends. There have been several times where I had small fights/arguments with him because I was PMS'ing*. This time around, I did not PMS (or I may have without realizing), but there were times when I would cry while watching a very sad episode of a TV drama. As I'm not the only woman who PMS before her period, so I don't feel too bad. But I do get annoyed when men think "She has PMS, RUN!!!" because it's very offensive and rude to women. It's like men are dissing our very nature. I haven't met any jerks like that yet, but when I meet one that ever says anything similar to that, I'm going to make sure I smack his face.

Oh, and before I forget, a big thank-you to all my friends who repeatedly endure my PMS-induced complaints and etc. You guys rock for being there for me even in my crappiest mood and conditions.

I mentioned before that "I hate being a woman", and I must say, I don't quite agree with my own statement and feel sorry about saying it sometimes. I do think it's unfair that women have to go through monthly periods, and the pains of birthing a child. However, I am proud to be a woman. Women are amazing for having enough emotional, mental, and physical strength to bring life into the world. Of course, women can't do that without the help of men. However, men are not the ones going through the burden of carrying a baby for 9 months and sacrificing their body, their time, and their already-sensitive hormonal system. So, as I said, I'm proud to be a woman, but I just wish I didn't have such bad cramps during my period. Haha!

Well that ends my big rant. If you've read through it all, I hope you've gotten something out of it.

I promise that my next post will be about a more fun subject. You can also suggest what my next topic should be in the comments! Or ask a daring question for me to answer.

Until next time...

<3,
Margi

P.S. Let me know if I made any grammatical mistakes *cough cough* ;]

================================================
* I use PMS as a verb but it is actually a noun.

An introduction...

Hello Internet!


As it is the first post to ever be posted on my new blog, I believe it is best to provide an introduction about who I am...


My first name is Margi. I am 20 years old, attending Brown University, and, currently, I happened to be immersed in a Korean Drama called "My Princess".


But those are merely three facts, and can't even be counted as a full introduction. I guess you can call that an introduction to the introduction.


To be honest, I don't know how to complete this introduction. But I know that I want to make this known from the very first post:


I have a couple of reasons for starting this blog:

1. I am a terrible writer. I have a strong background in science and math, however not in writing or articulating properly. Through this blog, I hope to fix that and become a better writer.
   
   
2. My past dream was to be a teacher (for chemistry), but I have strayed from that path and hopefully in a couple of years I will succeed as a computer programmer. In anycase, I have always believed in teaching what I know to others. In high school, I tutored little kids in math, and I have helped my friends for chemistry. Now, I can't really tutor anyone in any academic subject nor do I really have the right to teach anyone. Still, I do have years of experience as a student, as (dare-I-say) a woman, and as a lover. By posting about my experiences and what I've learned, I hope that someone will read it and get something out of my posts.
   
   
3. I want to keep a diary of all my thoughts and ideas. In the beginning of the summer, I discovered an old diary that I had, and reading what I wrote from back then was very refreshing. It gave me insight on who I was and how I changed. I hope to be able to observe those changes years later from now on. At least I know, this time I won't be writing about how much I love fried chicken. (On that note, I do still like fried chicken, especially the fried chicken from Korea!)

I have more minor reasons but as it is very late, and I do have to wake up early for my summer internship, I must be off! I do have a couple of ideas on what my next posts will be, so I will post soon.


For those of you who was bored enough to read my blog, or just curious enough to peek into my life, let me know what your thoughts are on any of my posts. Oh, and if you can give me tips on how to use Blogger, that'd be awesome too. 


<3,
Margi