Here’s the Inspiration Project

I was 8 when i first realized i enjoyed hearing sermons. Great sermons, that is. I would be there in the front pews with my parents every Saturday scribbling, drawing stickman’s at the corner while church was going through its usual ceremonies. Then just when the Pastor steps unto his pulpit and start his inspired message, i’d slow down and try to listen.

I don’t know what is in sermons that seduces me. Maybe its the stories, true-to-life or made up; or the mystery of Someone,something bigger than me that captivates my attention. Whatever it was it made me twitch my ear a little bit more to catch a word away from our notoriously busy childish church regimen.

I wanted to have that insight. To be a prolific speaker, someone with grace, outstanding wit, and humor that everyone including kids would love.

i needed an inspiration.

Fast forward one and a half decades and still no life-changing message, no redemptive sermons, not even a worthwhile inspiration.

I tried meditating, drugs (aspirins, multivitamins), or the occasional flings with danger.

They say that if you go to life’s extremes, you’ll taste nirvana
Unfortunately, with college and my mom constantly saying ” i love you’s” every time i leave the house and my little fear of heights, going to extremes didn’t feel so nirvana-ish.

Good thing though coz just recently an insight hit me.It wasn’t a near- death experience or a ray of light inside a pitch black tunnel. It came rather in a most subtle medium- sketching.

A past-time learned hand in hand with stories and sermons.

I learned that a message does not always require words. That sermons can also be lived, acted out, and not only preached in a high pedestal. Like plain words a sermon, a testimony can be rhymed, sung, written, grooved out or plastered in paint. Whatever you do best, if u consciously made an effort to let others see God’s love in it could be your testimony, your sermon.

A sketch i made earlier this morning, “”what if… Eden”. It leaves us a question:

what if Adam dropped the fruit Eve handed him? would our world be any different?
Would God separate them as He did with them and Eden? Or would she have died immediately so He can create another Eve for an obedient Adam?

 

Almost there, oppa

My wife has been pregnant for 9months. 40 weeks and 4 days, to be exact. She has been carrying that bulge on her stomach for almost a year now and its getting bigger and creepier every week.

What makes all these difficult though is trying to get used to the constantly growing gap between us everytime i give her a hug, or the occasional barrage of fists and kicks as my unborn son tries to muscle himself out. There was even this one time, i kid you not, he was able to skip songs played from mama’s ipad as she leans the device on her belly to let him listen to genius-stimulating orchestra with nothing but brute strength and pure unadulterated love for good music. My friends say it was just coincidence, i think its raw talent.
in fairness, my wife is nothing but gentle, soft-spoken, easy to handle, disney-like princess all through out this pregnancy, nearly none of the things old folklores warned me about- extra fat, mood swings, big noses, food binging. A Human Blue-whale.

Today we just got word that the baby is
descending a little slower than expected and the plan would be to guide him out by inducing the delivery.

I’m scared. Scared out of my wits

I want to scream.

Run.

Eat ice cream.

We went out instead and she did her last strut along the shiny Target floors- last before entering Motherhood.

 

Time flew by so fast. it was just a few months back when she first told me we were pregnant. I must admit it wasn’t a sudden elation or a sense of accomplishment that welcomed me. It was more of – am I ready for this?

One thing is true though, every time he moves, every time he gallops, it never fails to keep me wanting, waiting for more.

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reboot: Day 2.

 

Going to work with this routine is impossible. i dont know but for some reason everyone started bringing ridiculously mouth-watering, pure-meat enriched lunch.

everyone’s conspiring against me.

Even my patients meals look so appetizing, better than the salad i was having.

this  reminds me of the stories from Jesus going on eating nothing for 40 days. Man, he must have been starving. no wonder the devil said turn these rocks into bread ’cause i’m sure those cold rocks were feeling warm and freshly baked  after the 20th day.

But where can one find the strength to survive 40 days without anything, no food, no water, just meditation? wouldn’t your mind be wondering off  every second dreaming of anything to chew?

well, just to let you know, when i got home my pregnant wife was devouring Spicy beef and Orange chicken. i can’t tell you what happened next.

 

 

‘Prepping up for the wild’

The plan was to pack up for the Yosemite camping on the weekend. the highlight of our month… oh,that is, not counting my birthday last week. that was way Fun-ner. free food… Pirates…maiden in distress….. water.Rarr. But this Yosemite trip would be something extra ordinary for us children of the highly privileged. Considering most of us, middle Earth citizens, have never actually seen live fish swimming in the aquarium free water, or have actually breathed carbon less air. im sure most of us would have withdrawals and night sweats with less of it so im packing extra tank filled with exhaust air from our van for extra air flavor just in case people get freaky from too bare O2.ow…ow… and there’ll be fire too.

So predicting it would be cold and nature-ly,we tried adding to our list of foreseen calamity needs tooth-brush, Pokemon band aids( for fatal health emergencies) beef jerky(good for protein),cellphone charger, marshmallows, cheap sleeping bags and a cupboard..?what?

I was going along  reading on features for my starcraft2 game when Jen called me to come over.She had this you’re gonna drop your jaw straight to kingdom-come when you see what I have here – look.

and yes, it was a cupboard. this was no ordinary cupboard too, this was the assemble it yourself if you think you can kinda thing cupboard  much like our cozy nightmare stimulating bed.

Talking her out of it makes snake crawling  the I-5 in the middle of the day look easy and her  smiling excitedly wasn’t helping either.

To grind a riposte, I was gonna comment on the degree of difficulty it would take to put it together but as soon as we reached home, she was on a roll, like a day after Christmas. Like Wall-e and surplus metals. Who knew prepping for camping would end  up rearranging the entire house.

from last weeks’ experience with the bed construction I am now positive that I have married a pure-blooded descendant of the Patriarch Noah.

At least, I don’t have to worry about ants stealing my Honey Bunch Cereals in the middle of the night.

 

house warming

I’m off for the weekend.

and I could see myself lounging around like a hippo for 3 whole days. wake up 30 minutes past midnight, zombie-walk to the freezer and grab a 3 foot nutrient-filled-vanilla-coated-cookies ‘n cream- choco-fudge ice cream for an early breakfast. life could never be greater- Unless you  purchased a full bed from walmart, that needs assembling.

last week we decided to buy a new bed for the guest room in our brand new apartment. Somehow the idea of moving into a new place  really made an impact on  both of us that  seeing the  room half filled with boxes,unwanted clothes, pair-less shoes,a barrel of toxic waste and some old used tires  was unbearable.

So Jen, the Shop Guru, and  my mom, hit the web to search for the coolest neon- colored- full bed ever.

I’m not a connoisseur in bed mattresses or anything but I’ve always had this idea that beds are for comfort. soft and fluffy. simple. and parts shouldn’t  just fall off when two  100- pound adults decide to jump on them  on a boring Friday night.

before the weekend ended, we have cleaned the room and made ready for the newewst member of our small family. I took out the trash, piled boxes, hand-picked bazillion crumbs off the carpet (since we don’t have a vacuum), eradicated ants, stray horses, guinea pigs.

By monday, UPS called me to bring the package in. what I thought was a full stuffed bed with pillows,  inviting blankets with Canon playing in the background were 3 boxes and a mile long instruction list on how to assemble 6 planks of wood, 89 screws, 52 knots using an inch sized screw driver. it was like boyscout all over again.

IT’S A RIP OFF!  this was nowhere near  the picture they showed. there it was standing and firm and well lighted while these are all wood!After 16 hours of studying the manual(which translates all other languages aside English) we were able to holster it all in, we, as in Jen attaching all the screws and putting them all together while i do the most difficult manly job of internalizing the complex structural schematics.

 

some wedding pictures

heres some of the moments from the wedding 05.23.10

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we had so much fun. its weird when its your wedding coz you really cant eat that much … but i heard the food and those little food stuff were really nice too..

photographed by Andy Seo

 

quicker way to look dainty

For almost a month now , my struggle to gain supremacy toward my anatomy has been nothing but a failing quest. An elusive end.

Maybe it’s because it’s too ambitious of a goal for me or I have such a weak resolve.

Like Adam, I find myself unable to resist Eve’s  forbidden apple(literally).

I tried almost everything I could. From eating all-protein like lions , eating leaves and grass like goats( but this one I had to stop within a week out of fear of growing horns ), gulping algae like Ariel( little mermaid), running around the Rose Bowl( tried it for a day), biking to work, even the unimaginable, not eating chocolates(?). But  after all these unsuccessful efforts I remedied to check my weight  to at least once a week now rather than monitoring it daily to somehow cushion the blow of the slight 5 lbs increase in my body mass(ouch) and avoid bingeing, a rebound, brought about by mild depression.

Recently, my girlfriend is into Korean telenovelas.

She’s so into them that she started downloading korean applications on her itouch just to immerse herself with their culture and her korean infatuations.  Well, just a week ago, while spending QT, by QT, I mean watching her korean english subbed shows in youtube together, I had a sudden revelation. Why not incorporate my girlfriend’s obsession to my ever-failing quest?

here’s the logic: 

What does Asians, no, let’s just say Koreans, Chinese and Japanese have in common? yes. They are petite, THIN, healthy. and  what is it that they eat vigorously, their main diet? the secret where they attribute their flexible skinny bodies?yes again. NOODLES.

Now according to my deep analysis, if I can just start with that diet, I would be inches away from maintaining a thinner more agile structure. ka-chingggg!!

And so I run to the nearest seafood mart and bought myself dozens of them quick noodles, the ones they showed where cute Koreans guys from “Boys over Flowers” are eating.

And true enough, after I managed to operate the chopsticks to work and started sipping through the soup and noodles, I could immediately feel its effects encapsulating my still-flubby body. After a few sips, my stomach was already filled with a mixture of  fresh air, spicy soup and wiggly noodles. I’ve never felt this healthy before and now I feel full. no longer hungry like i was 2 minutes ago.

Maybe the noodles grant me an illusion of  being filled, but so far it works. for as long as it helps me avoid eating gluttonously and not feel weak from hunger at the same time then it’s alright.

for the sake of transient beauty I’ll do it all.

 

why Alice never went to bed again

And so i finally got the time to watch Alice in her wonderland.  for a CGI-addict, it was like hitting the mother lode of  stimulants and hallucinogens- a 2-hour ecstasy. 

but in between the  mushroom beverage, unorganized tea-parties, violent killer cards, and a head-dropping queen, i was brought back to when i was scared at nightmares. At monsters. At flying.I wasnt peeing my pants  or anything, but it did take  alot out from me as I  mastered courage to avoid screaming like a pop diva as this huge steroid-induced kitten, with jaws like a great White, appeared from nowhere and chased Alice around…i shouldn’t, lest i lose the chance to impress this  girl sitting beside me, leisurely digesting the 20 dollar popcorn i bought her as if this was another girl-flick movie.

I used to think that these children stories have something….what’s the word?…sinister, about them. Unlike other traditional bedtime stories, this is one of those dual meaning few that has become more popular than their predecessors.

Dwell on it  if you may:

• Alice and Wonderland- a story of a girl who  faced  conflicts in real life finds solace and comfort as she travels through an underground world she calls, Wonderland. But it is quite disturbing to note that Wonderland wasnt as relaxing as you might think it is, filled with height altering snacks,  devlish disappearing and flying cat, confusing story plots which diverts to different places instantaniously and  role confusions. a cocktail of extreme dimensions
• Hansel and Gretel- they’re dad left them in the forest to die just to please their step-mother’s insecurity-talking about abuse and parenting. and mind you, their dad did not just  do this once, but on the second attempt even made sure  they couldn’t find ways to come back.
• Little Mermaid- she gave up everything she has for the sake of a guy who doesnt even know her or that she exists. and to make everything worse, the time she finally got her man and were suppose to live happily ever after, her mermaid sisters dug a dagger on both lover’s chest ending their lovestory.
• Peter Pan- lost boys who never grows old. Everything was going smoothly, everybody was happy until Wendy came and  decided to bring all the other lost boys back to the real world with her. Yes, its for the good you might say, but them moving back  meant leaving Peter alone. and when you really think about it, at the end of the story, Peter was alone, with no one to play with except his stubborn shadow.

Children stories, for me, ought to be uplifting and inspiring. They should provide to a child good ideals as well as lessons for life and morals. We should, at this age, soak their sponge-like minds, positive and morally-correct ideas. and especially for bedtime , a critical time of the day wherein memories are stored in the long term brain, it is equally important that  as we set their minds for sleep, as we kiss them goodnight, talk to them about relaxing and peaceful themes. Something that can make their dreams sweet.