…that I’m unable to do anything today. Oh wait, ONE thing. I finally got a pair of shoes that don’t seep water into my socks.

…that I feel like such a teen, with extreme mood swings. One second I cannot help but to be ambivalent at life. The other I start swearing into the ground and up into the air. It’s bipolar Josh Kim at his best. If you see him today, make sure you catch him when he’s sighing, and not when it’s punching things. That way, you’ll get candy and/or gum.

…that I felt so inclined to buy candy for every single person I see. I personally have to think that it’s because I want to get at least 2x as closer to all the people I know now, now that my mind has been cleared just a little bit.

…that I can’t see straight. There’s this dark haze around everything. Just as I type this, I cannot help but feel my nerves on overdrive.

…that I’m in extreme extreme extreme amazement as to how much even worse things could have been.

This is the first of many thinly veiled commentaries on Josh Kim. Please do enjoy the complete waste of time this is.

I swear I counted wrong. There’s no way I did a mile in 7:15. Not a chance. Never.

In middle school, I ran a 10 minute mile. I was pretty out of shape back then. I still remember almost DYING as I crossed the finish line. I still remember those poker chips we used to mark how many laps we did. Man, that sucked.

After doing the math (right as I am typing this entry), 50 second lap (which is what I know I can do) comes out to 7.30 minutes. Oh. Wow. I’m quite happy. And this is after running 1.5 miles on the Nautilus… thank goodness I’m getting to healthiness. At least, cardio-wise. I hope I don’t have some scary cholesterol numbers like some rabbit Emily I know, though. (Update on left bicep: after almost a week, it’s still in pain. I can’t fully extend my arm without pain. But alas, must continue this up to keep beating Colin.)

Regardless, I’m happy to see at least something’s working out. So onto the actual entry.

After 3.5 hours of constant work (yes, I work…), I was looking forward to a lonely but restful lunch. Instead, I met up with Mike Cho at the Union for some Rice Garden. Then the almost obligatory Espresso followed… Almond Winston’s Breakfast (no Earl Grey… sad) with honey. More and more, I’m finding out that there is not a single tea I don’t enjoy. No more Caramel Mochas for me.

This second job is going to be interesting. I feel like I will be able to write an entire paper on using open source technologies in educational institutions. The Banner/Enterprise system was always a piece of crap in my mind, as well many of the other students… and to think at least some percentage of the 60K I owe in student loans went into paying for that pisses me off. A group of underpaid CS undergrads could have came up with something at least equal to this.

Moodle. I will be diving into the depths tomorrow.

It’s very fun. And cold. My goodness, it’s cold. I’m never studying on the 2nd floor again… why don’t they turn on the heater. Maybe it’s to keep the students alert and such.

Got Japanese, Hanja, and Ruby done for the day. I cannot believe the Internet is so slow. I think I’m going to hit up Siebel after my daily WIMPE run.

Dinner… what to do for dinner…

Work tonight. Then more work tomorrow. And then… yeah… you guessed it, more work.

Freelance is freeing. I’m free to do more WORK. Well, I guess, I’ll be occupied with lots of things to do.

A thinking Josh Kim isn’t going anywhere. Refocus. Reinvent.

Let’s see… anything good to share…

I got an email from my dad. It happened only a few times before, but my dad made it sound like it was the last one he was going to send. The exact contents will remain secret, but it’s mostly about (at least… what my poor Korean skills tell me) where I should be focused towards. He definitely pulled out some verses from Genesis and the tower of Babel to tell me something about staying here on campus… but we won’t get into that. In the end, though I got the point that to succeed in life, two things are most important: To not waste time, and to not be afraid of failures.

Hmm. Good. Convictions set forth again. Higher, wider, deeper goals are set. Time to go be more faithful in all I do.

Oh, and my dad can freaking write some awesome stuff. Too bad… I can’t read very well…

*Josh Kim is opinionated. Extremely.

I mean, seriously. How can you go wrong with a name like “Cool”? Their music… almost always brings a quick smile to my face. I cannot help but to bob my head from left to the right, over and over again. I might possibly become coding music soon. It’s late/early, right? I think it has to do something with coffee consumption. 3 cups, to be exact. I never got into coffee in such a large way until this “semester”… I might have to get a coffee maker, if I ever move into a place.

I think it’s almost official. I’ll be on campus next “semester” (again, I use this word as if it has something to do with me… but it doesn’t). Now, it’s about finding a place to live. I guess this is the place to shout for help while I start looking through apartment listings or whatnot. Finding spring subleases are definitely easier than fall subleases… maybe I can piggyback off of someone’s room. Seriously, I have no stuff… I live out of a suitcase, and I’m fine.

One of the many goals I have for the rest of the year is to learn more Ruby. I tried to start learning again today, but I got sidetracked with people. I went to the lounge of ISR and met so many familiar faces… which helped me to realize that I’ve been neglecting some of these relationships. If “people” were one of my many reasons to stay there, I better make “people” a priority.

Okay, that was an interesting tangent. So back to this programming language called Ruby. [It's going to get nerdy from here, please skip if you're not a nerd] While JoshKim.Org will stay PHP… and I want to learn to program a little bit more modularly using the plug-in system with WordPress… I will learn Ruby for some initial experimental web applications. Lots of little ideas rolling around, and I should start fleshing them out.

Goals for this coming week and the rest of the year…

• Hanja: Finish through 3rd grade.
• Only a few pages left.
• Finish the entire book by end of year.
• Japanese: Keep going with the lessons.
• Be able to read hiragana with no problem. ALMOST.
• Start Katakana
• By the end of the year: Be able to read all kana.
• Quiet Times
• Freak, I’m slacking.
• Daily. Prayer. Sweetness.
• Ruby
• Learn as much Ruby and Rails as possible.
• Write one coherent, fleshed out web application and put it on HanMeta.
• PHP/Web Design
• Freelance
• Need to look for another client. Keep working for first one.
• Work
• Start work on Monday. Rock out.
• WIG
• This is top priority… after my work… or is it?
• JoshKim.Org v. 1 will be complete
• The main (no… not jkmain) page should be complete.
• Blog
• Need to find a better blogging software. WordPress’s online interface isn’t good enough… need to be able to do things on the desktop.
• Figure out what the heck this site is going to be about… if I keep writing about random crap online, will it work?
• Have a link blog? Link to things I find interesting online?
• I do blog at incredible speed…

The funny thing is, this really sums up my life. Minus “people”. I don’t know how to categorize such a wide field of things… yikes.

Yeap. It’s final. No matter how well things went… they went with a more senior candidate. I guess that’s not that bad… but I really want to keep in close contact with Erik Hendrickson… he seems like he’s the “key to the mint” in Raj’s words. Definitely the doorkeeper to all things awesome and Apple. Such a friendly guy… And now… I am set. Even more than 75%… now more like 90%… that I’ll be here. With jobs popping up (I might get a third eventually, doing the same stuff with the water quality collection) here and there… I want to stay.

Reasons? People. Church. Atmosphere. Possibility for an MBA. Growth.

Growth? Yeah, growth. I feel like I’ll be able to become more independent and more responsible as I’m a bit away from my family. I feel like I’ve been very dependent, not in the sense that I was living at home now and then, but also mentally. I had a phone call with my dad today, and it seemed like he was… hmm… he wasn’t disappointed that I didn’t get the Apple job, but that he wanted something better for me. He sees that getting a stable job in a big firm is the best way to go. He likened my situation to soldiers being trained for the army, and I’m the one that wants to stay back in the barracks.

While I don’t think he’ll ever get the side of me that wants to continue freelancing. Freelancing is very… freeing. Just yesterday night… I worked like 6 hours straight to finish up a template for a job. I freaking enjoyed every second of it, even though I pulled out all my hair, dealing with silly mistakes and browser incompetences. I don’t mind living like this for a year or two.

At the end of our conversation, my dad stressed that I don’t have to report to him as much, that I just need to show the outcome. I think it’s true that I love my parents dearly and really want their support… almost… require it. I need to move away from that and be more forceful in the way I live my life.

To be less fearful… to be more fearless. In all things. Not just the relationship with my parents, but with friends as well.

I find it extremely difficult to show my weaknesses. I hide them deep, wrap them in conundrums and surround them with booby traps, so that maybe… possibly… when that person comes and pokes around…

Ugh. Sappy. Okay, the point? I listen to the words of those that I love. And I have way too much love to give… I’m a ticking bomb of love, just waiting to explode in ways of time, thought, money, service… But the question is… what’s appropriate to give and to whom should I give to?

And why the heck am I asking these questions? Can’t I just put them in a box and go get some work done? Hmm.

Faith: God puts exactly the right amount of things on my plate to think about. I have not had to and will not have to feel I’m being crushed at the weight of my own thinking. Wow. I never thought about it that way before… I think just enough… because God “blessed” (no matter how much I think of it as a curse sometimes) me with such a brain with a penchant for over-analyzing.

And so, onwards to the next fight. To the next battle.

The weekend awaits.

I feel like a student. But not really… Being here in Siebel at 3 in the morning… I feel like a CS student.

I guess another set of congratulations is in order. I found my second “job”… actually, it’s more like I’m working part time (“half time” is the phrase they keep using, but man, it’s still part time) for two different departments under the college of Education. Pay is what I expected, but what’s more is that I feel like I’ll be doing something I enjoy… a LOT more than had I been forced to do something. I feel like for this job I’ll have some degree of freedom… to learn and to explore more and more… What’s funny is that this means… I’ll be here for at least one more semester.

Which brings me to question… why? Why am I still here on campus after I graduated? For some of my friends, they are confused when they find this out. One part of me says… this is the place to be. I made the active choice to come back, and to seek out job positions here. For some reason, the job market is better than Cincinnati… not only because they like to hire student programmers, but I’m talking post-graduation or graduate school programming positions. Of course, Cincinnati has some great opportunities, but it’s just not the type of working atmosphere for me.

Another positive is if I really do decide to get an MBA here… tuition waver is a possibility, if not, then in-state tuition is a definite.

Something about being on campus… it makes me feel alive. Let’s not going in the fact that I feel younger, too… but it’s something about this place. It’s not just the people, nor is it just about the church… or the familiar faces and buildings… It’s something in the air.

However, I still await to hear from Apple. It almost seems like that ship has sailed. I think the Valley is out of reach until after a couple years or so… meh.

I guess the choice was made to stay when I got that WIMPE/CRCE membership here on campus (the rec center). Or… maybe it happened even earlier. Now to… find a place to stay for at least the next half year.

Then what? I don’t know.

Even now, I’m only about 75% sure about coming back here… I should since my job’s going to require me to be actually in town… but man, so many uncertainties.

And so… my schedule… for next week is going to be interesting. I’m going to have to go in to work early in the day, finish up the freelance job in the afternoon, and do some coding for myself at night. It’s going to be a busy rest of 2006.

What the freak? It’s almost 5!

I have a hard time motivating myself from time to time. I think the past 4 months have been that way… and it’s slowly coming undone. I think tomorrow will continue this trend.

I have an interview for a “half-time” (whatever that means…) position here on campus. It would be nice to have a constant stream of income, rather than just relying on freelancing alone. But this depends on if I want to do freelancing for a little longer… I will be sending an email to Apple tomorrow to figure out what is going on with the job that I might or might not have. Laundry Day… and met up with my roommates from last year. I definitely got to play some Guitar Hero 2 with them… and share some good times. Then Grainger, then the Perkins at 1 AM. Oh man… and now Siebel since 3.

The days are too fast. Not only because the sun comes out for like 3 hours a day, but also because the pace I’m running seems to be so fast. I feel like I’m missing a lot…

Well… to continue working or to sleep. Hmm.

Sunday. I heard one of the longest sermons ever in the times I’ve been at CFC. I feel like I have application points for a whole month after this one… but what followed was one of those moments were the sermon just became so very applicable.

Kim offered to swipe me in for lunch at the ISR cafeteria. From there, I met all these fantastic (and might I add, young) freshmen. Starting with the three I drove to church, Tiffany, Inyoung, and Alex (Psych, Pre-Med/Bio, and ChemE), and with the random Freshmen I met, Tim, Taylor, David… crap, I forgot someone’s name… Sorry…

Regardless, I tried my best to really get to know these guys. I felt soooo out of place and sooo very old. I got a glimpse of what my leaders must have felt… cuz man, they’re REALLY old. Moving on…

I must have wasted like 4 hours today, just doing nothing. But after that, it was go time. I got some email back for my job, and I see how I’m going to be spending the rest of the week doing work. I went to grainger, met up with Emily and went to Noodle’s. It’s not so bad, but it’s too expensive for what they give you… Starbuck’s and a return trip back to Grainger.

And so I’m here. After running into Mike Cho again, discussing corporate tax issues, as well as getting a random call from my Aunt about my cousin and college and such… man, it was a busy day. I don’t know if it was all 100% effective busy-ness, but I definitely feel tired. If I did go to WIMPE with Colin and Dean… things would have been bad. Not only will my chest and triceps be on fire, my biceps would be also… curses, soreness, curses.

Tomorrow schedule… Hmm… Get up, and work. I need to get myself to WIMPE. This is a must. As well as continuing on with work and things I need to get done for my own personal goals…

Life… is fun.