My memories of gae-na-ri (forsythia)

Today, I saw forsythia for the first time this year on the way to pickup lunch in sandwich place near work. That reminded me of many memories related to forsythia. Forsythia is 'gae-na-ri' in Korean. As far as I know, it is one of the earliest blossoming flower in Spring. Flower comes first before leaves and it is so... yellow. Vivid yellow color... I really love this flower. Also I heard that this flowering plant is not picky at all and very easy to cultivate. The one bad thing about this plant is that the blossoming season is kind of short. Here are my memories...

Memory #1 - my middle school
I was quite a tomboy in my school years. I was running around during cleaning time after school. Usually schools in Korea didn't have janitors for cleaning - not sure about schools in these days. So we had to clean up our classroom, hallway, and restrooms by ourselves after classes. That clean-up time was good to run around with friends :) Especially I liked a small bridge connecting our building and the way to schoolyard. Here, I think people call this kind of bridge as 'pedestrian overpass'. It is really boring name... We call it 'cloud bridge'... which I prefer to call it.

Anyway... There were lots of forsythia near the bridge. One of my favorite things to do during this time of day and season is - drop the forsythia flower one by one down the bridge. It spins beautifully - like a propeller! and waves down to the ground. Watching the spinning flower was a quite pleasant thing for me... and its spinning and color.

Memory #2 - my high school
Gae-na-ri reminds me of our teacher Mr. Jung who passed away not long after our graduation. High school system in Korea is quite different from that in US which is similar to that of college. You make your own schedule for one semester and there are lecture rooms assigned for classes. So you have to move around lecture rooms for classes. However, in Korea, we sit in the same classroom from morning to till when the school ends. There are time table filled with each subjects and teachers of each subject go to different classrooms for their classes. So basically, your classmate in your classroom spend whole day together and it goes like that throughout the year. Also there is one designated teacher for the classroom who are in charge of you guys and spend the entire year with you.

The designated teacher of my third year in my high school (senior year) was Mr. Jung. He was English teacher who had a big head and wore big glasses. His resemblance to one of the character in very popular cartoon (Dooley) made him be called 'Gil-dong' who is a stubborn head of the household where Dooley happen to stay. Anyway... whenever we ask him to sing a song - sometimes we needed to be entertained because we spent so much time at school (~ 16 hours per day?) - he sang a song titled 'Miss Forsythia'. That song starts with the lyric 'There is a Miss Forsythia near the well looking for love..." He sang this song with quite funny tone. We noticed that his health was not good at the end of the year, but didn't think that he suffered from cancer, from which he died few years later. Teacher Gil-dong...

Memory #3 - my graduate school
I spent many years in the same university for my undergraduate and graduate study. Actually the university is located quite close to the city where I lived. Only one thing is... there is a mountain between the university and my city. So, it took one hour one way (sometimes more than that) to commute. However, when I was in graduate school, a road with tunnel opened connect my city and the area where my school is located. That saved lots of time - it took about 25 minutes by car - the distance was only about 11 miles. Once I was caught by the traffic... it took much longer than that though.

I like driving that road because there were lots of forsythia along the road to the school - when I drive the mountainous area. They were so so beautiful. I smiled a lot when I see them... I felt spring approaching and right around the corner.

Do you have any memory about forsythia like these? :)

March 6th, 2001

Continuously I'm getting heavier. I gained... more than 10 kg and probably gain little bit more until the time of delivery. I don't care much about the weight, mainly because I didn't gain much weight in other parts than belly. However, still wondering whether I would loss all of the gained weight soon. Well Well.. that is life, isn't it?

Baby's movement in the belly is also changing. It is different from the movement of few weeks ago. I can notice that the baby become bigger, because it looks like he couldn't move around as freely as he used to do. However, I believe that he cannot really compare better place because that place is his first and the only place that he can imaging right now :)

Everything is new... is pretty amazing thing. In that point of view, the life the baby is going to experience... would be amazing. Like... pregnancy was my 'brand new' experience and even though I've seen and heard a lot about pregnancy, it has been pretty new experience - still it is. However, still.... it may not be compared to the experience of new born baby.

One of our friends here told me that their newborn baby girl was surprised by her own hands... and later her own feet. How funny it is? and not?

Definitely I feel more uncomfortableness compared to last month, but my pregnancy so far was so easy - lucky us and our small one. Hope that it continues until the delivery and later on... :)

Five more weeks to go... or later, or longer.
Look forward to seeing you, little one.

February 24th, 2011

Sometimes, the face of myself in pictures feels.. unfamiliar. 'Is it really me?' - that kind of thought. Not only the picture didn't come out as I wished or expected, but just because it triggers thoughts like 'Do I look like this?' It occurred to me when I was looking at my pictures in my blogs took several months ago in Germany. Somehow. Actually it is not only the face, but voice and sometimes even my own personality.

Life is also a journey getting know myself. And many others. Recently I watched the lecture series 'Justice' of Prof. Mike Sandel. That lecture series provide lots of topics to think about - how to live, how to communicate with other people, what is the purpose of life, what is right thing to do, and so on. 'Stay being alert or conscious!' is one of the message that I receive from the lecture.

Plus... 'balanced life' is really important... Let's remind me of those...

Baby's movement in the belly

It is getting pretty active and the intensity (?) is also getting stronger. I can tell the baby is getting bigger not only by looking at my belly but also feeling the difference in his movement. My belly popped up pretty a lot - it is really amazing that human skin is this much elastic. I even don't know what is my waist size right now, but it is literally 'huge'. I imagine balloon without air after delivering the baby. Even though it won't be exactly a balloon without air but rather slightly loose balloon for a while.

The change in human body is truly amazing. No wonder it causes back pain and indigestion since I'm carrying quite a weight on my belly. I guess that people who are trying to be pregnant should go gym and work on weight training - especially to strengthen their back. I really don't understand why I had never heard about this - strengthen your back if you're planning to have a baby!

It's been a while since I did ultrasound and little bit curious how he changed (and grew) since then. It is becoming 'real' that I'm going to have a little one because I started worrying about finding a place for child care and thinking more about how to name him, and so on. However, still it is more 'surreal' that I'm going to be a mom. It feels like some kind of a deadline, partially because I think that I need to finish up certain things before the leave.

Eight to nine more weeks to go... :)

Visiting SF

It's been... eight months? Since I left California. It is really good to be back, except the time difference -_-;
Last night, we walked around little bit for dinner and after-dinner walk. I don't need to look at map like when i visit unfamiliar city. I know the streets and directions, which make me feel good. Also a lot warmer weather!

Four more days here... good :)

Smiling cells

Do you have an experience of imagining some objects when you look at clouds in the sky or abstract patterns of wall, something like that? I remember that I used to be afraid looking at some stain (?) on the bathroom wall of our house when I sit on the toilet. Sometimes it looked like a scary face of ugly guy - especially at night... Even if it is a simple stain, if you keep looking at that and start imagining something... the best imaging acquisition and process hardware/software in the world - the brain start working and make up something out of the simple stain. That is a truly amazing process, which happens so quick.

As I get older, I graduated from being afraid of many imaginary fears. I know that there is no monster around the corner of a dark alley, and there is no ghost wandering around the house. On the other hand, I learn that the real danger in your life can be a human being with bad intention, not ghost or monster.

When I do some measurement or imaging thing - taking pictures of cells or surfaces, sometimes I found very interesting features. They can be a dried-out salt crystals on protein spot or fluorescence image of cells or proteins.

Few weeks ago, I was looking at picture sof erythrocytes - red blood cells and found one funny looking cell. It was a malaria parasite-infected red blood cell. Malaria parasites produce some dark crystals inside of the cells - called hemozoin. This particular cell has three hemozoins, and they look like eyes and nose to me. Also small shadow under them just looks like a mouth.

Well well... you can tell me that that is my imagination. Of course it is. However, look at the below picture. Do you think that it somehow resemble a face? Very round face, eyes, nose, and mouth! No ears and hair... but it definitely looks like a face to me :)

It is good to find a small funny and happy things in daily life... and appreciate them.

Do you see me?

The Big C

I started watching this show mainly because of the main character, Laura Linney. I saw some films and shows that she appeared, such as Love Actually, The life of David Gale, The Savages, John Adams, and so on. I like the way she act. She is not 'very' beautiful woman, but she is beautiful enough as an actress and very good at showing the inner strength hiding in vulnerable appearance.

The Big C is a show talking about cancer. Middle age woman just realized that she has a late stage cancer. Gosh... what if I face that kind of situation. You know that you're dying and currently do not have good 'treatment' for the disease. At first Cathy - the leading role in the show, played by Laura Linney, of course her name starts with big 'C' - decided to enjoy her life instead of taking 'not-that-promising' painful treatment attempts for her own dignity. Throughout most of the first season, she takes her own journey in life without letting her family/friends know about it. Only her doctor and old lady living across the street know that she has a cancer. She tried to tell her family few times, but somehow it dosen't work out well.

At the end of the season, she changes her mind and decides to fight back to cancer with her family. Recently it is announced that the second season will air next year. I thought that the first season was good as is, but I am very curious how the creator/writer will continue the story in the next season. The writer was pretty smart in not telling much about 'cancer' and also 'drama and tears' coming from the cancer story except the very last few seasons.

I really appreciate the fact that I didn't have to go through this kind of hard time during my life, and hope to be lucky like this for the rest of my life. However, if I were to face this kind of situation, I hope that I could be strong enough to handle it...