Byung Kyu Park's Personal Website

Nationar Review has 2010 predictions by their authors. My favorites:

• Most likely to come true (non-political): “Science: A more or less Earth-like planet will be observed in a more or less Earth-like orbit around a more or less Sun-like star.”
• Most likely to come true (political): “Chris Dodd loses his election. Capital police need to use a crowbar to loosen his grip on his office desk. ”
• Funniest crack: “North Korea: Kim Jong Il will be deposed by his military. (Yes, it’s true, I cut’n’pasted that from last year’s predictions. It’s bound to happen one year soon, though, unless the little toad dies first.) ”
• Most sobering: “The GOP will not take back the House. But it will be very, very close.”
• Most typical: “The economy will improve, despite the best efforts of the Democrats to weight it down with more regulations and the promise of future taxes. The Democrats will take credit for the improvement, the Republicans will dismiss the growth as inadequate, positions which would be exactly reversed should the parties’ relative political positions also be reversed.”

As for myself, I only have resolutions, same as 2009, to learn to use and own a gun and to meet minimum Marine corp selection criteria. The difference would be, well, I am more resolved and in the case of the second resolution, I have more time as well. Since I am not in the future-telling business, I will just leave with this quote from the wisest man that ever lived:

There is a time for everything,
   and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
   a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,
   a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
   a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
   a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up,
   a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,
   a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,
   a time for war and a time for peace.

What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

I know I had two goals this year: First to learn to use and own a gun, and to meet minimum selection criteria for Marine corps (it’s better than some arbitrary weight goal).

Well, I’ve had some setbacks. I’ve been sick last few weeks (not to mention some ankle problem) so I haven’t been able to … work towards the 3-mile-in-28-minute goal. I think I had one day when I could “run” 3 miles in 27 minutes, but, well, given that running on treadmill is probably easier than actual running (I think it must make some difference that most of your body remains stationary above treadmill), I should be able to do it more consistently by wider margin. And after 2, 3 weeks of not doing any aerobic exercises, I’m sure my progress in the weeks before have been wiped out.

And, well, the classes at Chabot Gun Club fill up easily (only 8 spots, only one class per month), so the next class I am signed up for is in January, which, evidently is in next year.

So, it doesn’t look like these goals will be realistically met within this year, but, well, better luck next year (with a lot more time to accomplish them in, too)?

I wanted to use my website as an OpenID authentication source (I’m pretty sure I have OpenID through other public service providers, such as Yahoo! and LiveJournal, but no one with an ounce of sense should be relying on third party providers for his identity), and as usual the easiest way to do it was to install a WordPress plugin.

Incidentally, the plugin also provides for visitors to authenticate themselves using their OpenID from elsewhere (the website URL when you enter comment is the same URL that can be used for OpenID), so that’s for your use, if you please—practically, there’s no real difference; all comments are held for moderation anyway (how else would I squelch dissent in my little paradise?), and is not your self-described nick proof enough of your identity? But in any case, I just wanted to get on some bandwagon and the OpenID bandwagon seems to be a … convenient one.

Oh, BTW, for those of you who hesitated on making an account, well, now you actually can’t make an account without a valid OpenID. Don’t you wish you had done it earlier?

XKCD has a great suggestion on how to violate laws of nature (causality) by violating laws of society (murder):

But I feel that he’s asking the wrong question here: “How many siblings do you have?” The question he should really be asking isn’t how many siblings. It’s whether this phenomena is limited only to siblings, or whether it’ll work with other close relatives or friends. It would be a scientific bonanza if this phenomenon can be reproduced with friends—siblings and relatives you eventually run out of, but friends, well, if you do run out of friends, you can always make more.

This is why I follow polls:

Is Daylight Savings Time worth the hassle? Forty-seven percent (47%) of adults say yes. That’s down slightly from early March when this year’s Daylight Savings Times began but is fairly consistent with previous years. Forty percent (40%) say it’s not worth the hassle, and 12% aren’t sure.

I guess this explains why we haven’t repealed the daylight savings time yet, despite all the academic and elitist snobbery about how daylight savings time was for WWII (we won, right?) and how it is unnecessary and it hurts agriculture than helps.

Well, all of that may be true, but the fact is, I suppose, daylight savings time is part of American culture, and at least as the polls stand today, it’s here to stay. Maybe in 10 years the opinions will shift, but that’s then.

I have a new resolution for this year: meet the minimum standard for Marine Corps. The criterion listed at about.com seems a bit more lenient than others I have seen before, but, well, it would be a good start to be able to run 3 miles in 28 minutes, do 50 crunches in 2 minutes, and do 3 pull-ups. At the moment, I am at the bottom rung of mediocrity: less than 3 miles in 30 minutes, too tired after 20-some crunches, and I don’t ever remember being able to do a pull-up in my life.

As far as personal development goes, if I could accomplish adequacy here and do my other resolution (um, learn how to use and obtain a gun, probably a handgun), I would have had the best year so far in my life.

Professionally speaking, of course, that’s a different matter, but I’m working on that.

Update: Um, I forgot to mention: I am mainly motivated by this book. I know, it has nothing to do with exercise (and given that it’s published under a pseudonym, I am not sure if I … trust everything in the book), but it was … very inspiring.

I broke a cup—a mug—this morning. I was careless and clumsy. The cup got knocked off to the carpet, and as it had been showing some signs of weakness along some lines, it broke apart along those lines.

This wouldn’t be worth a post if it was just any other cup. Or any other object. I break stuff all the time. That’s just what I do.

This cup was special. I had received it as a gift from one of my favorite high school teachers—I was in her ELD class only for first few months, but somehow I stayed in touch and was involved with her classes and department until I graduated—and if I am counting the years right, it had lasted 7 or 8 years of being with me. I brought it with me when I moved into Clark Kerr Campus as a freshman, and I always had it with me somewhere wherever I considered to be “home”.

And now that cup is gone—or at least, broken.

I am at a crossroad, and I am trying to convince myself that I should take this … omen as a sign that I need to cut all my ties to my old high school.

This thought had been with me ever since I graduated from high school. I had such an absolutely horrible senior year—I won’t go into details but let me just say that I felt completely mistreated and unappreciated by the school officials … I even regretted the decision I made as a sophomore not moving to a magnet school when I was given the chance—that I vowed never to let that high school claim me as one of their own.

But as I mulled that over in last 6 years, there was always some ambivalence in my heart. After all, I didn’t hate everyone at that high school. I did like the two teachers with whom I had close contact and who have been great sources of support during hard times. But logically, if I want to ensure that this high school could not claim me as one of their own, I needed to cut my ties with everyone and everything related to this school—and that had to include the two favorite teachers. And although I haven’t kept in touch in years, I have never made a conscious decision to cut my ties and contacts with them. So far.

I think this broken cup represents the decision I need to make. I need to cut my ties to my past, so that I can forget and move past the incident. The lines of contact need to be broken—either deliberately or by accident.

Well, for now, the cup is in four pieces that can be re-assembled with a good glue—it was a clean break with few small pieces falling out. As I ponder over whether to accept the sign of the broken cup and move on, for now, I am leaving it taped up (so it’ll hold no water) on my bookshelf. When I am ready, I will get rid of the shards—or, when I change my mind, I will glue them together.

It’s been my position as long as I can remember: I hate exercising. 9th grade P.E. class was all I could handle. After that, I took a P.E. summer school so that I can get out of 10th grade P.E. and I was done with exercising after that.

But recently, I’ve found three very convincing reasons which convinced me that I need to exercise in a gym (as an example, run on a treadmill):

1) Running on a treadmill, unlike running on a track, uses electricity. This helps cycle the electrons through our power grid and helps release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere—I’m not just warming myself up, but I’m warming up the earth, too!

2) Running on a treadmill, unlike, well, not running, helps me breathe out more carbon dioxide. As everyone knows, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that we have in our atmosphere only in minuscule amount (some hundred parts per million), and everyone needs to do their part to increase it.

Anyways. I guess it’s good thing RSF is open at 6 a.m. I mean it doesn’t help so much since it is still relatively full even at that hour, but at least when I’m out of RSF, I don’t see too many people walking around at 7 a.m.—I just hate people so much.

I watched I Am Legend, and I want 2 hours my life back. I hated it. I mean, maybe the novel will be better, but as far as the film goes, they left out all the good parts—sci-fi stuff that explains the existing situation (did they have to leave out so many details in the flashbacks?) advances plot lines—and put in an extra serving of all the gross, nasty, psychotic episodes.

In fact, I don’t even know why they cast Will Smith for the part: there is absolutely nothing humorous about Robert Neville. In fact, the character of Robert Neville is at best confusing, and at worst shallow, poorly developed, and contradictory.

Anyways. I so hated losing 2 hours of sleep last night for this movie (and waking up too late), that I had to vent somewhere—and it had to be you.

Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Me …

…

Just kidding. I don’t celebrate my birthdays—although I do plan on celebrating my imieniny starting this year—and today is not my birthday.

But it does happen to be Groucho Marx‘s birthday, so happy birthday, Groucho Marx!