jst got back from lunch with the lovely one. we ate at that new boba cafe. xP spew, i just have the worst luck in choosing items to eat. do not get the katsu-don or the green tea, which wasn't even green tea! but it's ok.. we got yogurt park after so i was all happy again. x)

back at work. *sigh* long day. time seems to be slowing down. no fun. sleeeeeeepy...

TIREDDDDDDDDD~~~~~

i couldn't fall asleep again last night.. (i don't think the 2 cups of tea and 1 cup of coffee helped either). so i was up til 6 this morning... and with an 8'oclock to go to today. i made it to class tho.. given, i was 25 mins late... xP i'm not enjoying this whole 8'oclock thing. *sigh*

now, at work again. wish i could be home sleeping. but i guess i might as well make money. then go home and crash... *sigh* it's all good mang. alll gooood! x) i don't know...

sometimes i wonder what's wrong with me. it's hard to just sit down and pray. last night or, this morning.. while i was up, i tried to pray, but my mind kept wandering. which was bad. x( boo booo~ i just need to do it instead of saying i need to do it. i really wanted to wake up earlier today and do my qt's for the first time since missions... x*( but i work up at 7:50. barely made it to class. someone wake me up!

i guess working gets me in the blogging mood. especially since i have nothing to do! dang.. it's only been 2 days since school started, and there's really nothing for me to do. *sigh* and now with luptuous workin with me, there will be less to do. haha... how funny...

so i've been doing more thinking about my futures... and it's really scary.. like.. i have to take LSAT classes, and i'm debating if i should, where i should, when i should.... it's so strange! up until college, i think life is so simple... you go from elementary to middle to high school. then you go to college, right? but what now? should i even bother wth law schooL? i don't know... it's so confusing! and it's just makin me stress about things that i would much rather not be stressing about. like how old i'm getting. x*( not a nice feeling. i wish there was some magic potion i could drink that could make my head all straight and things all ok. you know? how great would that be??? i wish i had more time to worry about the simpler things in life.. like God. and how to glorify Him. i guess getting back, i see how hard it is to focus only on God. even whn we weren't doing anything with church in Japan, i think we always had the reason why we were in japan in the back of our heads, so it was easy to keep Him and the people there in mind. but here, it's so much harder. i still haven't sat down and prayed yet. how sad. i made all these promises to pray for them, and i have yet to make a conscious effort to do it. i've been so bogged down with my own life--with LSATs, and classes, and financial things, and my future... xP it makes me remember the verse that i shared for devotions the last night i was there though.
But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
~Matthew 6:33-34
it says to seek Him and everything will be alright.. so c'mon haejin! seek God!!!

you'd think that as the years go by, i'd learn my lesson and it would be easier to seek Him. but as the days go by, it just gets harder and harder to get myself to do it. why? who knows? me and my stupid self just sitting around and worrying about everything, which just makes things worse. how horrid. xP i need to pray....

doode, i haven't blogged in forevers.... but i've been busy. really!

i got back from japan on the 19th.. i flew into sfo around 8am, got to berkeley around 11am, drove down to la around 1pm. got into la around 7ish. so that was a pretty crazy day. (thanks phil!) it was nice to be home, but i didn't get to stay for very long. i left LA on wed. night... or more specifically thurs se-byuk. got into berkeley around 6 am. i realized at 5 am that i had left my keys at home.. yay me. x*( so we had to wake up sung ah at 7 am to get the copy of my keys. *sigh* how retarded can i be??

it's already been a week since i got back from japan, but i haven't really had a chance to compose my thoughts yet. it's just a huge jumble in my brain. i need to take some time away and just remember all the lessons that i've learned. xP stinkin lazy me.... i need to pray.

ok, so i said i`d tell you if i ever found out more about the music thing, so here is an argument that is anti-exclusive Psalmody (exclusively singing Psalms)...

one of the reasons that this author was against that was that the world "psalms" was mis-translated. well, not mis-translated, but in the Hebrew, "psalms" doesn`t exclusively refer to the Psalms of the Bible. there are 3 words that can be translated into psalms: zemirot, zimrah,and mizmor. only the last one refers exclusively to the Psalter (the book of Psalms).

another argument is that in ephesians 5:19 it says: "speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord" in the Bible, there very many examples of other songs that are spiritual that are not Psalms. for example: moses` songs (Ex. 15:1-18, Deut. 32:1-43); miriam`s song (Ex. 15:21); song of Deborah and Barak (Judges 5:2-31); songs of David (2 Sam. 22:1-51, 1 Chr. 16:8-36)...song of Mary (Luke 1:46-55), and etc and etc! a big reason that they don`t sing hymns and praise songs is because they aren`t God-inspired (not God-breathed), but obviously, these songs are God-breathed. so why would God include them, but not allow them to be sung?

it also says in Psalms (and other places) several times to make a new song unto him. Psalm 33:3 says "sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy." and in several other passages that say similar things (Ps. 40:3, 96:1, 98:1, 144:9, 149:1, and one in Is. but i forgot to write that one down).. but God does give people talents and why wouldn`t He want us to use them for His greater glory?

i know that even in these arguments, there`s probably a counter for each one... but the thing that i`ve been learning is that it doesn`t really matter. just because i sing praise songs doesn`t mean that God loves me any less or has saved me any less. like it says in Acts 15:11:But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are. this was referring to the disagreement about circumcising the new gentile believers, but obviously we can stick in any other thing in place of circumciscion. we shouldn`t get legalistic about the smaller things. i think the most important lesson that i`ve been learning through my struggle with this is that i am so unknowledged. so i can`t defend why i do what i do. which makes these things a big deal to me because it shakes me up. through this, it`s made me realize how a lot of my relationship with God is emotionally-based. my very volatile and fleeting emotions... this trip has shown me why i NEED to read the Bible and other Christian books that can help me better understand and better prepare myself for such challenges to my faith. i need to stop making excuses...

i feel like a failure in many aspects of myself. i`m not loving enough, or patient enough, or knowledged enough, or....the list goes on and on... i came to this trip with different expectations. i thought that my prayer life and my QT life was going to be great... but i went about it totally wrong.. xP i jst sat on my butt and expected God to be bigger here than He is at home. which is retarded... but at least it`s helped me to see how retarded i am.. *sigh*

those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. but i, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. i will pay what i have owed. salvation is of the Lord.
~Jonah 2:8-9

so i`m back from korea.. i must say that it was a very big disappointment... x( sad, huh? first, our tour guide was totally ignoring me which made it completely impossible to get anything through to her. i know she`s korean and she speaks korean. i speak korean too. so i kept asking her in korean to explain in KOREAN what she was saying, but she kept speakin at me in japanese (it was a japanese tour group thing), so i kept asking her over and over again, and she kept shouting at us in japanese. 2 people understood out of the group of 6. and those 2 ppl don`t speak english to explain to the rest of the people. so i got totally annoyed and was in a bad mood for the rest of the bus ride. and for those of you who know me, you know that i`m sooo horrible at hiding my feelings, so i was showing my very korean side to the rest of my teammates and to megumi and kihei, the pastor`s kids that came with us to korea. xP bad thing i did #1. second, i was totally under the wrong impression. i thought that i would be back at the hotel by 8 in order to meet up with sammy, so i had made plans with him.. but no.. that wasn`t the case. it was a TOUR. like literally. we were dragged around to all the duty free shops that no one wanted to be at. i couldn`t even find a phone to call sammy to cancel! i tried to rush back to the hotel. i found another lady that wanted to go back to the hotel so we hailed a cab together. but korea is always trafficky! xP so it took us an hr to get back.. by the time i got there it was 9, and i called sammy.. he wasn`t very happy. x( but it was my fault... x( so i felt horrible! x( I`M SORRY SAMMY!! so i got to the hotel, and i called hyewon. when she came, i almost cried i was so happy to see her. someone familiar and someone that spoke my own language. someone from home. it was soooo nice.

going to korea with other ethnic`ed people just made me realize how rude korean people are. i was really ashamed and kept apologizing the first day we were there. the food was horrible cuz they took us to the crappy restaurant... the tour guide was totally ignoring us.. the people are just rude.. xP it was soo different from japan. i know that people are always harping about how disgustingly cruel the japanese people are, but at least they`re polite about it. xP i donno. it was just.. very discouraging.... and this was the first time i`ve been back to korea since i came to the states. 14 years... it was sad..

it was very interesting though.. i got to see a lot of interesting things. we went to the DMZ and saw a short clip on the whole n. korea/s. korea split and hopes for unification. it was really.. an experience. i don`t know.. i got caught up in the emotion of the whole thing. but it did make me want to research more about the history about korea and everything... hehe.. i also got to meet my mom again. i got back to the hotel, and there was a msg for me from someone who said that they were with my mom. i was totally confused. so i called the number at the bottom and then my mom answers and i was like.. woah! but i got to meet her again.. haha, but my bad thing i did #2. i had made plans with hyewon and sammy again for that night. but dinner lasted a lil longer than expected. but i made it back around 9, then i called sammy and he said to meet at a certain station, so i was arguing with my mom to let me go. and she did. but then i finally get there, and was there at 10:15ish, but we didn`t meet til 10:45. x( thanks to my stupidity.. xP so i made sammy and hyewon wait for me again. x( i`m so horrible. anywho, so sammy had to leave, cuz he had to catch the last subway. so he left, and then me and hyewon were walkin around lookin for somethin to do when my mom calls. (the original plan had been that i was going to go to my aunt`s house after this lil outing to meet up with my mom and to meet my cousins and uncle that i haven`t seen in 14 years). but i argued and screamed and yelled and fought until finally i just said that i was going to hail a taxi back to the hotel after i had finished playing with hyewon. x( so i had this huge headache that lasted to the next day. but it was probably a punishment for being such a bad daughter. xP

we did other interesting things too.. we visited a palace and went to insa-dong. but mostly, this trip to korea totally put me in my place. i had went on this trip with my own plans in mind--meeting people that were there, playing and etc... but God totally put me in my place. xP that wasn`t the reason for that trip. and that made me reflect on my entire view on this missions trip. i know that i have it really good. who gets to meet their parents during their missions trips?? and see friends? but it made me reexamine myself. xP and see that i was totally in the wrong. i`m trying to fix it now. my first goal is to stop complaining. xP cuz i complain soooo much.. x( so that`s my first thing that i want to change about this trip. if i have a complaint, i`m going to try and not talk. that means that i`ll probably be silent for most of the rest of the trip. but i just hope that i can do it.. xP please pray for me. *sigh* i have such a long way to go....