bills, bills, bills

actually, only one. the relatively new 50,000 won bill/오만원:

the prada transformer

architecture has been on my mind lately. buildings with unique features and smartly designed interior spaces make me happy. situated next to the 16th century gyeonghui palace, is the 2009 smooth membrane elasticized prada transformer:

i wouldn't say it's the most beautiful building i've ever seen, but it's certainly inventive. the prada transformer is a joint collaboration between design powerhouses, prada and rem koolhaas. it's a tetrahedron--hexagon, cross, rectangle and circle into one pavilion--that rotates with each exhibit. 4 shapes=4 exhibitions. the structure is designed so that the floors can become walls and the walls become ceilings and the ceilings become walls and the floors become ceilings. the building shifts with the aid of construction cranes and this shape-shifting space hosts different creative artistic programs.

banana chocolate chip bread

banana bread: quick to make and easy to eat!

insights, left and right

sometimes the things you think you know, you don't really know, until you know.

1) on friday, my yahoo email account got hacked and the ji sun imposter (or "assclown" as kathi likes to say) sent out an urgent email requesting for money. apparently i was stuck in swansea, united kingdom, without my wallet, and of course, without any money. i came home to a slew of emails from family and friends informing me that i was getting played. i immediately upped the security on all of my accounts by changing my passwords. insight #1: make sure passwords are not so easy to crack and my family and friends are AWESOME. hilarious snippets from you:

from seth:
But I already sent the money! And I wanted a candy bar. Oh well, fake Ji Sun will get a new pair of shoes.

from meredith:
Know how I knew it wasn't you? That email. Nowhere near, "creative as fuck". Only one Master Ji in this world.

from lila:
I knew it wasn't you 'cause your emails are way funnier than that weird dude's.

2) for the first time in months, i went out on both friday and saturday nights. insight #2: still not good for the stomach, liver or head.

3) it takes time to get to know someone. it takes a lot more time than i usually think it does...i recently met someone who confessed that he really liked me. whoa. dude. we've only had 2 interactions, how can you even think that you know me well enough to really like me?!? insight #3: ooh! i should be asking myself that same damn question! how can i think i really like someone when i haven't spent much time getting to know him? 2 interactions, def not enough time. 3 months, might've also not have been enough time.

a hodgpodge of everything

how do you accept something that you know is so despicably wrong? i've been trying to release my anger and disappointment, by doing countless things or other times, simply by doing nothing at all. i think my biggest frustration stems from his incredulous lack of understanding, but worse still, from his apparent shameless selfishness.

i've been feeling sporadic lately. sometimes i feel incredibly appreciative and tickled. (i recently met someone and based on that conversation, i like how he thinks and acts, how he talks and listens. his attention is sweet and thoughtful. i am enjoying this quietly charged anticipation of the unknown.) other times, i feel horribly lazy and apathetic.

my friend told me that my laziness is my body's way of telling me that i need to recover, to bounce back from job anxieties, a serious teeth ordeal, and a breakup and a half. perhaps that is the case...to aid in my recovery, i indulged myself today by playing hooky from work. i guess it's technically not hooky, if all i did was sleep for four hours straight! to sleep! to recovery!

forgiveness

my awe-inspiring, late drawing professor, gabrielle ellertson, once told me that the paper we draw on, has its own memory. whatever marks and lines we make, the paper always remembers. even when we try to erase an unwieldy line or a poorly placed mark, the lead lines are less obvious, but they linger, they are never completely gone.

i remember that moment vividly. i remember thinking, "how true!"

when i was younger, i was an incorrigible perfectionist. if i made a mistake while writing notes to my friends, i would often rewrite the entire letter, until it was complete, to perfection. i sigh now at how ridiculous my younger self sought control. as a child, i think i believed in the idea of perfection. i think i found mistakes a sign of inferiority, a mark of weakness. so i chose to present myself with as much perfection as i could.

i am thankful that i have shed much of that constraining perfectionist tendency and have learned to value and appreciate mistakes, marks, as a part of me, a vibrant and necessary memory. understanding mistakes is about accepting and giving forgiveness, to yourself, to others. there's a saying, "forgive and forget." i'm going to modify that and say instead, "forgive and learn." don't forget, that's what cultivates the deeper understanding of who you are. people want to forget, to erase. people want to reset. but you don't need a "fresh" clean start to begin anew. learn instead to accept. because no matter how you much you try to erase, it will be there. the memory remains.

a person with whom i opened my heart to recently asked me for forgiveness. i opened my heart fully the first time and much more apprehensively the second time around. both times, have resulted in varying depths of disappointment and sadness. i cannot ignore what i currently feel, but, in order to let go of the residual anger, i know that this too will be forgiven. EVENTUALLY.

but right now, i'm appalled by his behavior. it bothers me that my emotions were jerked around and flip-flopped as a direct result of his inability to figure himself out. DUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE!!!!!! if you are uncertain, if you are confused, do not go around professing emotions that you cannot support, a mere 7 days later.

balance/imbalance

during the second attempt, i think our minds have a way of recognizing, subconsciously, before our hearts do, the imbalance of a relationship. the heart remains hopeful while the mind is more critical, skeptical. the yin and yang within ourselves. they need and balance each other, and, combined with the inexplicable super powers of the gut, make one helluva detective.

2 weeks later

it's interesting to recognize that while my mouth was healing, other parts of me were healing as well. i think there's something incredibly therapeutic about sleeping pain away. maybe it's just about sleeping and allowing your body and mind the space to breathe uninterrupted. during that time, i began to think more about my personal goals. about what to do, about what i want to do and how to do it. i realized that i'm very good at making lists but that when it comes to actually doing things, i make tiny excuses. the time to start is now.

so i've begun to do things. i practice yoga every other day. i study korean, even if it's only a little bit, every day. i'm also practicing the guitar, daily. and even on those days when i lack patience or the mood, i'm still making it a habit, a good habit, to DO! and when i push all the tiny excuses away, i feel better. some days, i feel great.

in less than two months, i'll hopefully have a new job! my current contract ends at the end of september and i've given my notice. i am not renewing. i don't have my next job lined up, and even though i have some anxieties, i trust and have faith that i will find a good job. a better fitting job. i want to teach children. i like teaching adults, but, oh! the children. (to quote pre-crack whitney and 30 rock, "i believe the children are our future...")

super sweet potato!

in korean, sweet potato is 고구마 (goh goo mah). koreans love sweet potatoes. in seoul, you can buy steamed 고구마 right off the street. (you can buy pretty much anything from a street vendor!) when i was younger, my mom would simply steam them and eat them, plain. she made me eat them too. i was by no means forced to eat them, the sweet potato is easy to enjoy! hold sweet potato in hand, devour. you don't need anything else. no utensils required. no additions necessary. it's naturally sweet and delicious. and, AND, it's a serious super food. SUPER!

last night in class, my student, mr. lee and i were talking about the joys of fresh organic produce. we talked about sweet potatoes and how healthy they were. he told me that they had a lot of fabric in them. fabric? huh?! AHHHHHH! you mean FIBER!!! fabric, fiber? actually, fabric has fibers--i can see the relationship--related, but different.

fiber. i wondered what else the sweet potato contained and i was impressed! it's a nutritional super star! not only does it provide a good source of fiber, it's also loaded with vitamin a (helps form and maintain healthy teeth, skeletal and soft tissue, mucous membranes, and skin) and vitamin c (necessary in the body to form collagen in bones, cartilage, muscle, and blood vessels and aids in the absorption of iron, and prevents scurvy) and potassium (needed for cells, especially nerve and muscle cells, to function properly.)

i'm going to eat a sweet potato now...

not for the faint of heart

WARNING!!!!!!!! this is NOT for the faint of heart. if you do not like to see blood or gums and especially bloody gums, DO NOT, i repeat, DO NOT read any more of this post. there is some graphically bloody content! it's a step by step documentation of my dental implant surgery. i, personally, find this gory-ass shit incredible. maybe it's because it's my effin mouth, but, really, i'm amazed by technology and our bodies ability to accept and heal, adapt and recover.

my friend, brendan wrote me a ridiculously funny email about my fusion with bone and titanium:

That's so crazy that you are getting permanent teeth!! Are you afraid it is going to take away your magical powers and world reknowned party trick?? Seriously though, it must be exciting, although in the short-term, kind of painful and frustrating. Is it hard to eat with just the titanium in there? Fusing bone and titanium - you'll be like Wolverine. You can start the Korean chapter of X-Men.

bring that shit on bitches!!!!!!!!!

so, without further ado, i present to you, my dental implant surgery!

my gums before the surgery:

the first part involved cutting open my gum to measure my bone loss. the exact spot where the tools are resting shows the thinnest part of my bone:

so, uh, yeah! remember how i mentioned that my dentist had to expand my bone? and there was loud hammering? the line in the center of my bone is where he hammered:

and in that hammered center, he drilled two holes. and in those two holes, he fit my two titanium rods:

then, he gave me a bone graft and stitched me up:

after a week of recovery, the stitches were removed:

i'm currently waiting until all the swelling has gone down and i'll be fitted for a temporary set of teeth while i wait. after 6 months of waiting, i'll have my permanent crowns! dental implants have a success rate of over a 90%. here's hoping i'm definitely in that winning percentage!

before and after: my mouth, the model

this morning, i went back to my dentist to get my stitches removed. it's remarkable how much i've healed in 7 days a lone. damn fascinating, actually. my bruise is mostly gone and my gum is feeling a lot less swollen. it's still a bit sensitive and tender, but what can you do after you've had your bone hammered and drilled and two titanium rods are now nestled in your mouth?

during the day of my operation, i had asked my dentist if he'd be willing to document the procedure for me with my camera. i wanted to be able to see everything, especially since i couldn't see anything during the operation. he replied that he would be taking photographs with his own camera, for his portfolio, and told me he'd be happy to send me copies. he confided today that i am the first patient to request photos of the whole bloody mess. he probably thinks i've lost my marbles. too late, dentist, them marbles have been long gone!

who doesn't like before and after shots?!? huh, huh? you tell me. to notice the differences, look very closely at the area above the gap. which gap? the one where there are no teeth gap.

before: the gum area above my toothless gap is concave. the bone mass has decreased or shrank in size because there was nothing for it to support.

after: ooh look now! it's significantly plumper!

before: the recessed gumline

after: the added bone gumline

and so, i wait. 6 months to go!

bruised and all

this was taken in the middle of the surgery, during my bathroom break!

my gnarly gums:

when the anesthesia began to wear off:

the swelling commenced:

and continued:

the bruise emerged below:

and spread above:

the calm after the storm:

sleep and more sleep

after 3 days and nights of sleep, and more sleep, mixed in with a couple of movies, book reading and soft foods, i am feeling much much better. the swelling, while still noticeable, does not, at least, make me look like a human monkey!



p.s. i can pull most of my hair back into a ponytail! say what?!? i think all that sleeping has induced a growth spurt!

how i lost my teeth, the first time

four years of contact sports and the worst injury i endured was a sprained ankle. i played soccer, lacrosse and ran hurdles during indoor track. then, during my last year of high school, instead of running track, my friend gina and i decided to do something completely out of the blue, we decided to try out for cheerleading. yes. cheerleading. gina went on to cheerlead at her university, i quit the squad a month later to sing and act in the high school musical, guys and dolls. my mother was distraught.

it'd be more glamorous of me to say that i lost my teeth while doing a triple somersault or backflip from the top of a pyramid, but really, what happened was i fell. plain and simple. i fell, actually, during try-outs. while doing a pivot turn. i know, i know. a pivot turn?!? my hands were clasped behind my back and when i turned, my feet slipped out from underneath me and i had no reaction time to put my hands out in front of me. essentially, my teeth broke my fall. literally.

instead of my nose, cheek or chin breaking my fall, my teeth were the first to hit the surface of that cold cafeteria floor. it happened so quickly that all i remember is sitting up and wondering what happened. then, when i looked by my hand, what i saw frightened and shocked me. i saw half of my front tooth on the ground. i picked it up and used my tongue to survey the damages inside my mouth. yep. that was definitely half of my front tooth in my hand.

once the other girls realized what had happened, they began to squeal around me and i remember the coach telling everyone to calm down and give me room. i was in shock, and gina took me with my half tooth in my hand to the local dentist, who coincidentally, was another cheerleader's father. what are the chances, i tell you, what are the chances?!?

once in the dentist's chair, i was informed that my front tooth and the tooth next to it on the right (no. 8 + 7) were both loosened by the impact and the nerve endings were exposed. not a good thing. i was confronted with choices. my parents had insurance, but they didn't have dental insurance which severely limited my options, financially. i could've either had root canals or have my teeth extracted and wear what is affectionately known as a "flipper," a retainer with fake teeth attached. i opted for the cheaper option, and for ten years have worn a flipper. it served me well and many people had no idea that i had two fake teeth. i performed many a great party tricks and loved the shocked look on people's faces when i exposed my gums.

but, what i didn't love was that i had to worry about eating too hard of foods (no apples, no taffy, or caramel and certainly no corn on the cob!) and also, it did hinder my nights out, only slightly. i wore my flipper during the day, but, at night, it has to be removed. sleeping with the flipper in my mouth would serve as a host to other dental hygiene problems, bacteria and other gross stuff. and even though i was fine to pull out the ole flipper among friends, i was a bit more hesitant with romantic interests. and i happily found out that those who love you care not what teeth are missing.

now you may be wondering, why did i wait so long to get implants?
honestly, i was not fully aware of the consequences that time would have on my bone loss. i think that if i were more cognizant of the damages, i would've opted for implants much much sooner.

so, after my first round of oral surgery in high school, i walked around for two weeks with no front teeth. i didn't mind it so much. it was a fact of life. you do what you do because it is what it is. my sister was incredibly generous and helpful during that time, feeding me peach yogurt and other such soft mushy foods. this second time around, i'm back on that soft mushy foods diet. thank you yogurt, rice porridge, and chicken soup.

the big blue

i was curious to see how my gums were doing, so i lifted my big fat ass swollen upper lip with my finger--yes, it's that swollen that i can't even move my lip without assistance!--and what do i find?!?! and incredibly gnarly bruise on the under side of my lip. it's an intense shade of blue and purple. this bruise just may rival the bruise i got when i fractured my arm laying out for a frisbee in college. i. am. badass.

the aftermath

what comes after surgery is sometimes worse than the surgery itself. in an unfortunate set of miscommunication foibles, i walked out of the dentist's office without my prescription for painkiller meds.

3-4 hours later i was writhing in pain and called the dentist's office to see if i could take tylenol. it was then that i found out that i should've been given a prescription! here's what happened: the receptionist gave me my ice pack, two containers of mouth rinse and a sheet with post-op directions. she then left the office and the dentist went over the post-op follow up instructions. when i paid for the first installment of my implants, a nurse--not the receptionist--helped me and i think she thought that the dentist or receptionist gave me my prescription. i think the dentist thought the nurse or receptionist gave me the prescription and the receptionist probably thought that the dentist gave me my prescription. sweet jesus, how many people does it take to administer a prescription? apparently, more than three.

when i came home, i tried to take a nap but the pain was so intense that i couldn't even sleep. and believe me, i can sleep! and i have a pretty high threshold for pain, but this was really testing my limits. you can imagine my shock when the receptionist told me that i should've been given a prescription--wtf?!?!?--and thankfully, fax machines quickly sorted the fiasco all out. thank GOD.

by the time i got home to take my meds, i was crying. it wasn't a long journey, the pharmacy is just down the street. but still, DAMN! i just got my fuckin bone hammered and drilled. painkillers are essential. relief came almost immediately and then, i fell asleep.

my upper lip is mad swollen, as is the right side of my face. i like to say i look a bit like a human monkey. i've pretty much been sleeping and watching movies for the past two days. good thing i have two more days to sleep, watch movies and recover. the swelling has gone down a bit, even though i look like i've botoxed the shit out of my upper lip--believe me, it's not attractive. look for yourself: