-Lauren

We learned how to write a sonnet at school and this is what I came up with. I know, funny and a bit weird. Sonnets are not always for love stories. Right?

This is an Italian sonnet with a irregular iambic pentameter and an ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme.

So how about you try writing your own? : )

Do these photos make you smile?

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

One of my new year resolution was to start a new theme post for my blog and I’ve finally decided on what it’s going to be about: music of the month. I love music and I consistently update my music playlist almost everyday so I thought, “Why not for my blog?”. I will try to upload frequently about all genres of music every other week or maybe every month or week depending on the new hot music that’s out. Sometimes, it might just be about any kind of music that I like regardless of whether they are old or new. So keep in touch with my blog if you want to listen to the hottest/best kpop (Korea), jpop (Japan), cpop (China), pop, and many other songs : ) The playlists will be saved with my writing posts but only the most recent playlist will always automatically play on the side.

So my first music of the month is on kpop (Korean pop). There are lots of hot music this month and this is the following playlist that I’ve chosen for the second week of January:

1. Tik Tok- 2PM

2. 낙인 (nak-in)- Lim Jae Bum

3. Mystery- B2st

4. Sorry Sorry (Answer ver) Piano version- Superjunior

5. 외톨이야 (outcast)- C.N.Blue

6. Good L.U.V.- MBLAQ

7. Man they are- Rumble Fish

So here’s the music for you to listen. I’ll be back when there’s more hot music. May all your ears enjoy! : )

A 16 year old boy from England violently killed a hamster that he was raising in a microwave. He was sent to court last week for animal abuse crime. This hamster’s intestines were burst while bring fried in the microwave and the hamster had to feel all the pain because he couldn’t die earlier. This boy even laughed while placing the crying hamster back into its cage to leave it to die. The parents thought the crying hamster was sick and took it to the vet the next day and the vet was shocked to see the half-dead hamster all burnt and full in pain. The vet reported this abuse to the RSPCA (England’s animal protection agency) and this gruesome crime was handed over to the police.

What makes me even more mad is that when the judge told the boy that the hamster would have felt hours of pain before it died, the boy laughed out loud without a single sign of guilt. The judge ordered this boy a mental examination and is planning to order official punishment after his mental status or disorder is examined.

I agree. He’s definitely crazy.

Can you even believe this happened? I was disgusted by what happened after I read this article. How can a 16 year old boy, a human being with a brain commit such distorted crime? As a person who raised hamsters before, I feel like I’m going to puke any time soon.

Animals can feel and think just like us. They feel joy, anger, and pain. I can’t imagine the pain the poor hamster would have felt in the microwave. I mean, is that boy a psychopath or something? Did he think it was going to be funny? How can watching a hamster’s insides can all burnt funny? Would he think it’s funny if his pet gets burnt in the microwave? Maybe it’s because he might not have a pet that he doesn’t have much affection towards animals, but he should at least have had the common sense that what he was going to do was crazy.

This made me reflect back to the past news I read about animal abuse. Recently, I read an article about a boy who put a hamster into a grinder and about a boy who dissected his pet cat while it was alive. Those news grossed me out. How can a human being even think about such thing? I mean, if you have a normal mind, would you ever think about giving any kind of creature such pain? I thought those kids seriously needed some immediate mental therapy and some kind of punishment to make them realize their terrible faults. I was able to at least tiny little bit understand them because those kids were under the age of 10. (Well that doesn’t make them innocent but still…)

But this boy’s 16, just one year younger than I am now. Did I ever think about killing an innocent animal this cruelly last year? No. Would a normal teenager? No.

I want to shout out to all the crazy people out there who think this is a tiny bit funny or something that they want to try, whether they are curious or just plain cruel: Don’t even think about it. If you do, please visit a local psychotherapist now because you seriously have some problem.

Let’s please care about animals and every other creatures in our world that have LIFE. What’s so hard?

For Christmas, I decided to cook a dinner for my family. I didn’t have much time to do something grandiose but I found my way to making a decent dinner. 

Salad with wine

Lovely steak with fried vegetables, potato, and sweet potato.

Dessert served with a lovely mocha cake : )

Merry Christmas EVERYONE : )

This is a summary of what I was saying (more like exclaiming) while I was watching the new movie “Avatar” at the theater yesterday. The movie was just AMAZING. I did expect a decent movie since it was made by one of my favorite directors James Cameron, but I didn’t expect that I would be in love with this movie this much.

I’m in LOVE with this movie. I love it so much that I’m riding the subway all the way to Yongsan to watch the IMAX 3D version of “Avatar” this Thursday. This is kind of a movie that you can’t resist watching twice or three times from. I might watch it even more.

Here’s a brief summary for people who’s interested about the plot. There’s no spoiler here :

When his brother is killed in battle, paraplegic Marine Jake Sully decides to take his place in a mission on the distant world of Pandora. There he learns of greedy corporate figurehead Parker Selfridge’s intentions of driving off the native humanoid “Na’vi” in order to mine for the precious material scattered throughout their rich woodland. In exchange for the spinal surgery that will fix his legs, Jake gathers intel for the cooperating military unit spearheaded by gung-ho Colonel Quaritch, while simultaneously attempting to infiltrate the Na’vi people with the use of an “avatar” identity. While Jake begins to bond with the native tribe and quickly falls in love with the beautiful alien Neytiri, the restless Colonel moves forward with his ruthless extermination tactics, forcing the soldier to take a stand – and fight back in an epic battle for the fate of Pandora.

The story itself kind of made me feel that the ending was quite easily predictable but the movie wasn’t that simple. The whole movie made me reflect on how humans are killing Earth right now. today. We ruin the amazon forests everyday, break into habitats, and everywhere else on Earth for our own good. We don’t thank nature as the Navis do and we just so easily think that everything is our’s: when actually, it’s not. Humans in this story threatened the Navis to move out and killed them to achieve their goal. How is that even reasonable?? But I realized that it’s happening everyday. Birds, bears, bugs, and every other creatures in the habitats that we’re breaking into would feel the same way as the Navis: threatened, sad, and hopeless from losing their home. I loved the love story and the great picture throughout the movie but I was amazed a lot about the Navi’s spirit of loving nature, thanking nature, and their beliefs of returning everything to nature someday. Their deity was nature and even when they were killing wild dogs that were trying to kill them, they felt sorrow and moaned for their death after they killed them. It was a new shock to me. I learned the spirit and on the way back, when I actually stepped on a flower, I said sorry to nature.: )

If I grade this movie, I would definitely give it a 11 out of 10. It’s just too good.

1. I was off to Japan for three days and I didn’t have much internet access there!(I loved it there! It never get’s boring in Japan)

2. I was off to a ski trip to a Korean ski resort called Gonjiam! (Great place. You guys should try that place out ; ) )

3. I was off to my grandma’s house, which is also somewhere with no internet connection!

and last but not least,

4. I was too busy enjoying my winter break!

Yes! Winter break started for me last week and I couldn’t stand being home just like any other day, so I was busy out playing everyday. When I came back home, I was all tired and exhausted so I couldn’t blog. It may sound like an excuse, well it is an excuse, but I’m back now and I will blog from now on once again! : )

I was quite surprised at the fact that my visitor counter raised by a 100 while I was gone. Wow. 100 in a week is a new record.

So, if there’s anyone out there ( I doubt it : P) that checks my blog out once in a while, I’m back!!

____________________________________________

.. I dreamed I had an interview with GOD

“so you would like to interview me?” GOD asked.
“If you have the time,” I said.

GOD smiled.

“My time is eternity… what questions do you have in mind for me?”

“What surprises you most about humankind?”

GOD answered

“That they get bored with childhood, they rush to grow up,
and then long to be children again.”

“That they lose their health to make money…
and then lose their money to restore their health.”

“That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present,
such that they live in neither the present nor the future.”

“That they live as if they will never die,
and die as though they had never lived.”

GOD”s hand took mine and we were silent for a while.

And then I asked,

“As a parent, what are some of life’s lessons

you want your children to learn?”
“To learn they cannot make anyone love them.

All they can do is let themselves be loved.”
“To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others.”
“To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness.”

“To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open

profound wounds in those they love.
and it can take many years to heal them.”

“To learn that a rich person is not one who has the most,
but is one who needs the least.”
“To learn that there are people who love them dearly,
but simply do not yet know how to express or show their feelings.”
“To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it differently.”
“To learn that it is not enough that they forgive one another,
but they must also forgive themselves.”

“thank you for your time,” I said humbly.

“Is there anything else you”d like your children to know?”

GOD smiled and said…
“Just know that I am here.”
“Always.”
“All ways.”

________________________________________________________

I read this again and again and again. Every single word touched my heart.

One psychology professor once lectured to a class.

“Did anyone in this room ever hear God speak?”

Nobody answered.

“Did anyone in this room ever touch God?”

Nobody answered.

“Did anyone in this room ever see God?”

Nobody answered. So the professor concluded with his speech.

“Therefore, we can conclude that God does not exist. Right?”

One student got angry and shouted,

“Did anyone in this class ever touch the professor’s brain? Did anyone see his brain? Did anyone hear his brain? Therefore I can conclude that our professor’s brain does not exist.”

God… nobody has yet “proved” that he exists but I don’t care if nobody has. I once heard from priest that we can’t fully describe God in words.But he said that even without words, we fully know that he exists.

Whenever I face an adversity I turn to God. Everyone, whether or not they believe in God, naturally pray to God when they are faced with an extreme adversity. I’ve seen many people who claim themselves as atheists say “Oh God.” That itself shows that God exists in everyone’s heart.

I finally got to watch “New Moon” at the theater yesterday and I was, of course, amazed. I don’t care what others say about the whole movie technique or how they didn’t like the acting. I just watched it to visualize the whole story that I read from the book  into my head. I watched it for fun! I loved the movie. Nice movie, nice actors (*hint hint), nice music, and many other nice things. Maybe it’s because I’m a huge fan of the Twilight saga, but I don’t get most of the critiques that people are making about the movie.

Too “teenagey”? Well sorry I am one. And what’s wrong with a movie targeted for teenagers being too “teenagey”? I don’t think it’s any different from any other love stories (which includes almost every single other movies).

It doesn’t make sense? Duh, it’s a fiction story! You’re supposed to watch it for fun! I mean, you should go watch documentaries if you think the whole werewolf thing is nonsense.

I don’t like it. Well, I can’t really say anything about that. You’re not cool! : P

It was fun matching up the movie scenes with what I had read before. I reminded myself many times throughout the movie when something was missing from the book or when lines were added such as Bella saying “You’re beautiful” to Jacob. (I know, so random). I thought the movie overall tried to emphasize the love tension between Bella and Jacob too much. In the book, I never really got the feeling that Bella had anything for Jacob but in the movie, she was IN to Jacob in my opinion. In the book, Jacob tries real hard to get Bella by fixing motorcycle rides and being there when she’s lonely. Bella, in the book, showed slight affection towards Jacob but she always had a distance.

I understand that the movie has a limit on what it can include from the book but they missed so many important scenes! The whole cliff jumping without the scene with the Quileute pack tries to teach her how to dive. The whole motorcycle scene was totally shorter than what was in the book. The weeks they made the motorcycle together was when Bella felt closer to Jacob than ever. The Quileute pack didn’t come out as much as I expected either. Paul, Sam, Jared, Embry, etc… I expected to see much more of them. Hopefully they’ll come out more in the third and the fourth movie. I found out that Alex Meraz who plays Paul is very handsome! haha

After the movie, the same feeling that I felt after finishing the book swept over me. How can Bella choose Edward over Jacob??? I thought like this before I started liking Taylor Lautner so it has nothing to do with the actors. Story wise, Jacob was there for her the whole time when Edward was gone and Bella never appreciates that! I mean, the whole story ends in a happy ending with Jacob imprinting with Bella’s daughter but if I were her, I would totally go for the werewolf.

Overall, all I have to say is: Watch the movie. It’s great!

Lauren’s 10 commitments to achieve success:

1. Stop sleeping three hour naps after school (I don’t function really well after these naps nor do I feel lighter : ( )

2. Sleep earlier (Common goal for a senior but I really really should sleep before at least 2 A.M.)

3. Stop watching dramas (I bet I could save hours from holding myself from watching any kind of dramas)

4. Finish my college application essays ( I have one to go but I’ve been like this for the last month… I should finish and get rid of it)

5. Exercise (I really need to exercise for my own health and for my vitality in life!)

6. Study on my desk ( I keep studying on my bed which is the cause of my naps and frequent nights sleeping without finishing my hw)

7. Carry my cellphone (I frequently leave my cellphone at home or in the car so I miss so many calls and text messages. I’m blocking myself from the social world!)

8.Believe it or not- stop blogging ( I have like ten saved posts and much more saved in a pages document… I should rest a bit? haha)

9. Read (I really enjoyed reading before. It’s just that I don’t have time now! But if I get my college apps done, I will have time!)

10. Go back to being optimistic ( I used to be optimistic but senior year is making me quite cynical and pessimistic. I should enjoy life more)

So here are the ten commitments that I believe achieving them will lead me to success. So what’s yours?