Coffee: For most, it's safe

Coffee has been blamed for everything from moral turpitude to cancer. But none of the bad raps have stuck. Coffee may even be good for you.

Despite 20 years of reassuring research, many people still avoid coffee* because they worry about its health effects. Their concerns are understandable. Older studies had linked coffee to a range of health problems, including pancreatic cancer and heart disease. But this early research didn’t take into account the real culprit: cigarette smoking, which was once a common habit of many coffee drinkers. We now know that in moderation — that is, a few cups per day — coffee is a safe beverage. New research suggests it even offers some health benefits.

Coffee isn’t totally innocuous. Its main active ingredient, caffeine, is a mildly addictive stimulant. Getting too much may give you the jitters, keep you awake, and make you irritable. If you’re a regular coffee drinker and miss your morning dose, you may get a splitting headache. Some people develop indigestion, stomach problems, or other intestinal distress when they drink coffee. And inconclusive research suggests that high doses of coffee can contribute to bone loss. But for most people, coffee in moderation is harmless.

If you don’t enjoy coffee or it bothers you, don’t drink it. But if you consider it one of life’s pleasures, a rundown of some of the latest findings on coffee’s health effects may assuage your concerns.

*yay* good news for once. x)

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Psalms 63:1

what more do we need?

i realized last night that i have attention whore problems. i crave it all the time. any time anyone gives me a smidgen of attention i get all stupid. it's a drug for me. i need to stop.

i'm sorry

speaking of apologies, omg.. i never realized how incredibly bratty i was in high school. i was so awful. i can't believe the things that i did. no wonder people accused me of leading guys on. i did. but honestly, please believe me when i say that i had no idea that i was. that i had no idea of what i was doing. i'm so sorry.

*sigh* my life is full of mistakes. will i ever learn from them?

Lord, please, this time, let it be different.

i don't know what's wrong with me...

yesterday, i forgot my purse at home. i needed it to get into my work (plus i was driving without a license). luckily, my mom has a friend who works in LA near my school so she picked it up and i went to her after class and got my purse.

last night, i was in a rush to get back to school (because i take the bus) to get to my 6PM class (after work @ 5PM). i forgot my purse in the office.. -__-;;;

to make matters worse, my cardkey stops working after 5. so i ran upstairs (it was around 5:10) just in case someone was in the office. nope. noone. so i was running around (because, at this point, i realized that my car keys were in my purse, which meant i couldn't drive home). i kept running around and finally ran into someone else in the same office but different division.

to make things even worse, because tax is highly confidential, no one has the keys to the office. they were so nice and basically, one of the attorneys sat with me for an hour and a half, calling everyone he could think of. finally, he found no one with a key so he called the federal marshall. they called homeland security, who called a guard.

you'd think that's where my sad story ended, but it didn't because, you see, the guards can't open the individual offices.

now, i've missed half my class and i still don't have a car key. so i thought i'd call jae to ask her to pick up my spare key from my house and come get me. unfortunately, she didn't have the car. so i told her to call yong-jin.. but that didn't work out.. so i kept calling people because this attorney was offering to take me home.. nice as he was, i just wasn't comfortable with that. finally i called tkd andy. *sigh* he picked me up from school (after the attorney dropped me off). it would've been great if that were the end, but i was parked in a towing zone (from 7-9 AM) and since my office doesn't open til 8, i still had a problem.

so, we went back to try and find the kill switch. (because the spare key at home didn't have the alarm) we couldn't figure it out. i called towing service but they wouldn't service me because i'm not covered. so andy called his AAA and a towing guy came and showed us how to disarm the alarm so i could drive it home. *sigh*

thanks andy~~ i owe you.

you'd think i'd have learned my lesson, right?

this morning i forgot my id/card key for work. i had to turn around and go back for it. luckily i hadn't gone too far. *sigh*

really, though.. i've always been forgetful, but these days, it's really bad. is it old age?

someone said something to me that made me stop and think twice: "you get upset easily, huh?"

i never thought of myself as someone who immediately reacts to everything.. but i guess i'm more emotionally driven than i thought. it made me sad to realize that instead of reflecting God in my actions, i just reflect my sinfulness.

it was a good thing to hear today. i've been trying to be careful all day about what i said and how i react.

Lord, please help me to be who you made me.

so i have this tradition. i love to read my old posts. so every once in a while i'll just go through and read all my old posts.. but since that takes so much time, i decided that every month i'd read the same month of the previous years..

it's strange.. my senior year at berkeley, a lot of my posts revolved around church, and my feelings.. about God and such. last year, all my posts revolve around mundane matters.. ie: my kitties, my day, etc. the earlier posts give me a better idea about how i was actually doing back then. the more and more i blog, the less personal it gets and the more superficial my posts become.

i want to go back to those days when i actually had something to say..

maybe next time i write i will have something personal to say.

so he's really leaving me. and without my kitties. T-T

anyways..

these past 2 weeks have been pretty chill. which is bad, considering that i have 4 classes and 3 jobs. yea.. i know. but maybe since he's going to be gone most of the week i'll have enough time for all this. then again, maybe i'll just be lazy and do nothing instead. xP watevers..

i'm at my externship. i have a lot to do, but i can't seem to get started. that seems to be my theme this semester...

i was really sad. i did reasonably well in 2 of my classes.. then in my one writing class, i freakin bombed.. like 1.5 SD below the mean bombed.. like it brings my gpa down by 3 points bombed.. x( i'm so sad. what's even sadder is that i still don't have all my grades. *sigh*

i must do well this semester. maybe kevin leaving for SD is God's way of trying to help me a little.

imma miss him though..

oh, stop gagging. if he was yours you'd say the same thing.

stop it~~ it's true!!

speaking of kevin and san diego..

he got a job at sony. YAY! congrats baby~

but.. he's leaving me. x( BOO! you big jerk!
*sigh* literally.. he has one week to move down to sd and start work. i feel so sad.. i'm going to have so much extra time now.

but.. he said he'd take my kitties. YAY! they have a home!

but.. it's like $300/cat!! (for deposit) what the???!! BOO! bad apt people.

all of that adds up to:
BOO, big meanie! always leaving me!!!
but i'm proud of you~~~ i knew you were going to get the job. x( x) T-T *sigh*

a couple of weeks ago, me and kevin took my niece to sd wild animal park. here are a couple of pictures. (more to come!)


heaven, not paying attention to the elephant show.


the best part of the trip (in heaven's mind)

she's so cute, isn't she??

jae, teach me how to put up the movies. i still have eugene's belly-dancing incident and i have a lot of heaven i want to put up. x)

the chocolate drink from starbucks (chantico, or whatever) is N A S T Y.

first day of school. *sigh*

i really like my int'l tax II class. i'm just worried that i failed int'l tax I.. x( hopefully i didn't.

today has been a long day.. and it's not over yet.

i guess i should get to reading..

i had something to say, but i forgot.....

i had two very odd dreams last night.

one had to do with law school. i was scared to meet the dean even tho he was from Cal. there was this newsppr on campus that was racist/KKK-run and i was the one that found that out. the editor was pretty much "kidnapping" law students and forcing them to write these stories. somehow i got to the bottom of it all. she took me to her "secret lab" and tried to keep me there but i slapped her in the face several times and demanded that she let me go. so she let me go. as soon as i got out of there, i ran into the dean (whose name was lord burcham.. i think our dean's name is __ burcham), and he was wearing a Cal sweater. so i intro'ed myself and let him know about the scandal going on. he was very happy to help and we became friends. later, i was talking on the phone with someone and i was saying how i got away by slapping the girl. then later i get a msg from the dean.. but he did it like ransom note like, saying something along the lines of "i must warn you to not talk to anyone about this because i don't want you to say anything that will hurt you later." or something like that.. weird...

then.. i was on some boat. i was part of a movie, but me, the character, didn't know that. anyway, it was sinking or something. lots of rain. (maybe it started raining during the night and i heard it so i incorporated it into my dream). anyway, there were all these peasants (or at least poorer people) and jude law was one of them. they were starving. and the rich people were killing one of them. let's see if i can explain this.. there was a hole in the boat filled with water. the put him in there then they hammered the top over it. (what a horrible way to die, huh?) his wife was crying on the side and there was a priest doing the final rights and stuff. some invisible hand hammered it shut. i could hear the guy under pounding on the metal and you could see the dents in the top. somehow he managed to break through and he was trying to get out, but as he was clutching to the sides, the metal from the boat gave way and he crashed back into the water. through all this, my character (who was rich i guess) was trying to sleep some green tea to the wife. i finally get it and i go over to jude law and tell him to give it to the lady. he says that she's gone. then i tell him to drink it himself and then i start running. i wasn't sure if i was allowed to do this at all (to even talk to them)... then my dream kinda zoomed out and i could see the entire boat and everyone was frantically running. it seemed like there was some sort of round-up going on so people were running and screaming so i did too. somehow i escaped into the street and just ran. someone followed me and kept chasing me..

i don't really remember the details of the dream but some blind guy helps me escape for a while. then there's some sort of underground effort to save the captured people. i never do learn whey we were captured or why i was running or even who i was running from..

weird.. my dream was really dark and dreary though.. and cold. odd, huh?

i'm bored.

i wished with all my might that i could ditch work today and go to SD.. but instead, here i am again. x(

man, i must have been really tired yesterday. i got home around 6pm last night. ate dinner and cleaned up. then at 8pm i fell asleep. woke up at 12am to phone call.. then fell right back to sleep.. finally woke up at 7am. almost slept for 12 hours! but at least i'm not nodding off today like i have been for the past two days.

i was going to clean last night but.. i went to the room and got overwhelmed. my goodness! where am i going to put all that crap??? i really need to clean today though.. xP

i was really nervous because my school website said: "Fall 2004 grades will be available as of Jan. 4, 2005 after 5pm." taking this stmt, it seems to mean that grades will be up at that time, right?

but, no. that's not what it means. it really means: "grades will be up when the prof's feel like posting them and they start being posted jan. 4." none of my prof's have yet posted. *sigh* how exciting. i get to wait around. this is the dumbest way i've ever gotten grades. why bother putting up any grades when they are not all available? so even if i got a couple of my grades, i wouldn't really know my ranking or gpa or anything like that. xP wee-tah-ded.

anyway.. i'm just trying to waste some time. they gave me a project (yay!) but i doubt it will last me all day... so i haven't really started yet even tho i've been in since 8:45am. i hope it stays this calm so that when school starts i can do some school work. we'll see.

my life seems to revolve around school, huh?

i need to refocus on what matters...

wow i'm bored.

i started my externship yesterday, but everyone is pretty busy with a trial that's coming up next week, so no one really has time to teach me the ropes. so i've been doing nothing for the past couple of days. yay.

i just want this to be a better semester than last year. no more fooling around. straight a's, baby!

(and then i woke up.)

such a boring holiday season. i had great plans for the holiday, but family and rain pretty much ruined it. -__-;; i was supposed to clean my room, but that didn't happen because our house has turned into a hotel. i guess i could clean my mom's room (where me and my sisters were all crammed in together), but i don't want to. haha~ *sigh* don't worry.. i have plans to clean it today. xP

anyway... i'm tired. so sleepy~~ i was awoken at 5 this morning (4:58 to be exact. i had to check my clock 3 times cuz i couldn't believe how early it was) to the sound of my uncle and cousin fighting it out...literally. so.... yea, that's a glimpse of what has been going on these past few days..

ugh, please, don't start yet school... i'm not ready for you yet.