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| So this is my 3rd time in thailand so i'm going to give the highlights of my trip via bullet points. - my friend T Todahakesen finally got hitched in thailand with a real thai ceremony which he doesn't really even know what to expect since he only knows chinese weddings in his family.
- my first trip back to thailand, t brought me to his house and his mom, for some reason thought i was his boyfriend since he was like 34 and not married yet. i'm glad that confusion is now straightened out!!
- in the ceremony, one of the rituals was that there were "gatekeepers" who were paired up and wouldn't let t pass unless he said something and then bribed the pair with money to let him pass. it was a neat experience. he almost didn't suggest that we go, but we woke up early in the morning nevertheless and simply put, i couldn't have imagined flying all the way to thailand and not go to his ceremony.
- me and the other guys got some custom suits made in mbk (the ultimate swapmeet mall). i wasn't really planning to really buy a suit, but then i ended up getting suckered to buy 2.
- in bangkok, we met up with y lee which was cool cuz she and i have similar travel experience. we have been here a few times so we not really into the cheap food and cheap buys like before. we ended checking the new central mall which was crazy. it had everything and for a good price. i was even more impressed that it was more put together than the shopping i have seen in japan (and those are impressive). i simply couldn't get over the fact that this place had pretty much offered everything in the world.
- chiang mai was pretty relaxing. we had some good food and pretty much hung out at central airport mall. the highlight this time was eating khoi so. a special northern curry and yellow noodle dish which we couldn't get enough of.
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| I wonder if we should put space exploration on the back end of the U.S. "to-do" in 2009. According to FY2007 NASA the budget for 2007 was $16.7 billion. That is a lot of money for what to answer the question will man live on the earth forever?
The last good apollo mission to the moon was in 1975ish. Everything after that was pretty much to put satellites in space, not for cellphones or gps primarily, but most likely for missile guidance.
I heard on the news that some women was theorizing with false excitement that they are really discovering a lot of possibilities in outter space that there is life on other planets. And they asked when do you think you will be able to substantiate that claim, and she said like 50 years from now.
anyone watch WALL-E? Pixar makes a funny commentary. In the future, we might just be living in a luxury space ship like what would be like a cruise ship on water. We would be overweight, incapable humans who don't know much about life, only pleasure, without meaningful relationships. And in the end, the movies basically says, Earth is our real home and we only need to take care of it and our relationships.
I think our space exploration is a mix of man's deep desire for a god to communicate with us, with some military motives to kill off other countries, and denial/pride to reach the next "Tower of Babel."
So what do you think? $16 billion in Space exploration or $16 billion to invest in our earth and u.s. economy crisis? What would Wall-E do?
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| So my brain has been working overtime and i had this provoking thought.
Who would have ever thought a black man or woman to be president? And yet this year, both those possibilities came up.
This was my first year voting after 28 years of living in the US. I felt this year I had to vote because I felt the issues and presidency were relevant and provocative.
Anyways, I figured that this years election came down to choosing the best candidate out of the worst. It wasn't like we had to choose one out of the best.
But when it came down to it a black man won. Why? Well McCain didn't fit the typical picture of what a president should be. In contrast Obama was a picture of this type of president, minus his skin color. Don't get me wrong, I am not racist or anything, I'm just coming from a sociologist perspective.
So what i have come to understand is that it seems like the American people have maybe found a way to turn the presidency into a new form of political slavery or a way to make someone do hard work that no one else wants to do. This idea might be pushing it, but in our current context it seems like the people expect him to carry a burden that is way too heavy (Abortion, Budget & Spendin, Civil Rights, Corporations/Regulation, Crime & Punishment, Drug Policy, Education, Energy Policy, Environment, Family Values, Foreign Policy, Gun Control, Health Care, Immigration, Iraq & "War on Terror", Jobs & Unemployment, Trade & Globalization, and Welfare & Poverty) that one president shouldn't have to face in one term in office. Have you seen the stress and weight loss and toil on his face? And he made a lot of promises for change which he can't take back because the whole world is looking to him for CHANGE. And it's a triple edged sword. The American people expect a lot. Black people expect even more. And now the world even more so because of where Bush has positioned us in the world's perspective. Talk about pressure!!!
People used to admire the office of presidency, but I'm not so sure this is the case anymore.
If I could relay a message to Obama personally. I would say, "good luck mr. president. its going to be a tough road. make sure you get all the help you can get because you can't do it alone and you will never be able to please everyone."
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ahh, the old days. i miss when girls wrote these little notes, folded it really cool and pass them between classes. "w/b" write back. "oy" was our little inside joke. "don't worry be happy" was the saying. getting in trouble for going out on weekends. being left at the library by our parents after school.
i miss the days when girls like this would totally be flirting and having fun. what ever happened to Julie Kim? she cute and smart (she did my homework for me) and really liked me, so why didn't i ever go for her? i guess i was so into having fun then that i didn't think much of getting tied down.
so many high school stories. i wish i was a little bit wiser back in the days, but maybe that is what made all the stories cuz i was just having living instead of thinking about how to live.
i recently had to move all my stuff and after 12 years of keeping all my love letters and notes and cards and keep sake stuff, i finally threw them away. what made me do it? some would say that keeping them would only keep me in the past. but i guess i did it for practicality.
it's odd to reminisce of the past, cuz we shouldn't really live in the past and yet at the same time, it defines who we are and where we've been. sometimes i get reflective thinking about stuff about life, then i think about where i am in life now, and then i start to wonder where is all this life going to end up like? i remember my friend who got shot over a girl in highschool. i wonder what happened with his family? what happened with the girl? did she feel bad? is she married to that other guy?
this week has been so life taking. i added my ex-girlfriend as a friend on facebook and you know what she comments?
"Do i know you from somewhere, you look familiar? I wanna make sure before adding you...."
another ex-girlfriend is now pregnant and married to my friends brother. what the heck, what a small world?
and another girl i was head over heels told me when i asked her the dumbest question after finding out she is pregnant with this guys baby, "do you love him?" she answered awkwardly, "uhh yeah, you don't think i was going to wait for you forever." oh man....was i an idiot.
and now and days, what am i up to? there's a lot of things, but hopefully i've gotten a little bit more smarter....
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