What have you done for me lately?

Was thinking of a title for this post, and this song just popped into my head. Not exactly the topic, but it's a cool song nonetheless...


Anyway, I've been home a little over a month now, and I've been pretty busy, and I continue to be busy. It's a pretty cool and hectic time, I'm sure you can imagine. Christmas is only a couple days away, and I'll be traveling to New York with a daytrip to Canada and back to Maryland before going back to Tennessee/Kentucky for a couple weeks and then onto my new life in Ohio. Sometimes I really wish I would have been able to get out of the military in July like I was supposed to so I wouldn't have to take care of everything right now, right in the middle of the holidays, but I suppose everything happens for a reason, so I will try not to fret about it too much. :) Something I really do miss about being in Iraq though is being able to study Korean. Hopefully, when everything settles down a bit in about a month or two, I'll be able to study Korean again. I know I'm going to have to work hard so I don't become distracted. 

I've been posting quite a bit on Twitter lately. It's really quick and easy to just write down what I'm doing and what I'm thinking or whatever. It's sometimes good for me to post what I'm doing to just keep track of myself too. I can barely remember what I did yesterday, let alone last week, so if I am trying to remember a date that I did something, I maybe could search for it on Twitter and find out when I did whatever I was thinking about. Twitter's also great to find out what's going on in the community. Weather, traffic and event updates, oh my!  

Now I've got to go to bed. Not many big plans for tomorrow, but I might do a little last-minute Christmas shopping. 

An instance where the Internet is NOT helping me.

Usually, I can do just about anything I want or need to on the Internet, although right now, I'm really starting to think that looking online for a place to rent is a bad idea. Although the Internet does serve as a good starting point to know where to look for a place, it's really difficult to just pick and choose from just looking at pictures or plugging in addresses to Google Maps. I guess I'm just going to have to physically go to my new city and do things the old-fashioned way. Just like I found my last apartment. Too bad it's going to be FREEZING!

Pharmacies are hellish

Pharmacies are one of those places that I dread going to. No matter
how few people there are, it always seems like you have to wait
forever to get your prescriptions. I would much rather self-medicate
than wait at a pharmacy. At least the one I'm at now has decent chairs
and there aren't too many people waiting. Then again, that is just an
illusion anyway.

--
Sent from my mobile device

This title has no inspiration. Sorry.

Well, I've been back in the states now for about two weeks. I had a lot of plans when I was in Iraq, and I still do, but the plans that I've put into action so far haven't necessarily went as beautifully as I had pictured them. Yeah, I know, pretty much everything is easier said than done, but it sure can get depressing sometimes when things don't go just right. I'm okay though. :)

I've got about a week left until I go to my new city to start looking for a place to live. I'm really excited about that. I've also got plans to visit one of the schools I'm considering applying to there.

I have just a little time left before they'll let me out of the military, so I'm trying to get everything squared away for that.

Gotta spend time with my family too. Haven't seen most of them in way over a year now and I've got a little army of new babies in the family to greet. They all look really cute in all the pictures I've seen!

Haven't really had much time for reading or studying lately, and I worry about that sometimes. Now that I'm back in the states, I really don't want to let myself lose focus and just quit studying and reading completely, but right now, I guess, those things are kind of being pushed out of the way. I really hope that it's just because I'm not really settled right now, and whenever I complete my move to my new city and start my new life as a civilian, I'll snap back into shape and be a good, studious student.

I can't wait for this week to be over so I can travel again!

Finally. Home.

Well, I'm back home now, and I'm so excited. My trip here was kind of sucky, but it was definitely worth sitting on an extremely packed bus for 12+ hours and not sleeping more than an hour at a time for a 48 hour period.

 
 

I've got a lot of stuff to accomplish, and right now, things are going kind of slow and not always the way I want them to, but that's life, I guess.

 
 

One of the very first things I wanted to do when I got back was to get my cell phone turned back on. I have Sprint, so when I deployed my first time, I called them up and had them put my numbers on the military suspension program. When I got back, I called them back and they gave me back my numbers, no problem. This time, however, they said that their system canceled my numbers and gave them away. So, I have to get new phone numbers. That sucks, because everybody I know has the old phone numbers, but I guess this might be a good thing because it's forcing me to change, and I'll be getting phone numbers for Ohio, where I'll be living for the next few years. I have to wait a few days before I get my new Blackberry though. (I'm really excited about that! Yeah, I know I'm a geek!)

 
 

Whenever we redeploy, the first seven days consist of a bunch of briefings and stuff so we can get our paperwork and medical stuff squared away. Most of it is death by Powerpoint, but the days are generally short, so it's not too bad. After that week, we should be able to go on leave shortly thereafter.

 
 

Thanksgiving is coming up, and I really have no clue what I'll be doing for it. Since I'm spending Christmas with Sean's folks, I get to plan what we do for Thanksgiving, but with the way things are, I don't know what's going on with my leave, so the decision will probably be made like the day before Thanksgiving, and I might have a super long drive ahead of me. Ugh.

 
 

Gas is really surprising to me now. The lowest price right now in my town is about $1.73. It's kind of hard to believe what I saw on the news when I was in Iraq about how expensive it got earlier this year. When I left last year, I think it was somewhere in the $2.50-$3.00 range. We've been driving Sean's car a lot lately, and I'm keeping my truck at a friend's house, because it's kind of a waste to drive separate vehicles all the time, but I'm really happy about these gas prices.

 
 

There have been a lot of changes in the past year…I went to the PX yesterday and I was going to go to Clothing and Sales that was right next to the PX, and the building was GONE! I'm gonna have to search for it today, I guess. It looks like they've completed some major road work in my area as well. One road, I know they've been working on for about the past three years or more, and now it's all nice and finished!

 
 

The weather is going through a pretty icky cold spell, I guess. It's snowing all over the place and it's absolutely freezing here. I really would have preferred to come home when it was a bit warmer, but oh well. I'm home, and that's all that really matters, I guess.

 
 

Ah, that reminds me of shopping! Last night, I went clothes shopping for a little while and got myself a pink peacoat at Gap. It's really pretty, and I'm really excited about wearing bright colors again. I'm probably going to end up buying a lot of sweaters too. I didn't shop for too long because Sean gets bored with it quickly.

 
 

I went to Wal-mart my first night back to pick up some necessities, and I got really overwhelmed by the selection. After reading this book, the way I look at making choices has changed dramatically. I was shopping for a new deodorant, and the selection was so vast, I ended up spending way too much time trying to pick out the best one for the best price. Luckily, I realized fairly quickly that the excessive amount of choice was eventually going to make me give up and leave without making a choice, so I just picked a deodorant that was good enough, and I'm a lot happier with that.

 
 

Well, I better get going because I'm getting distracted by other shiny objects, so I better get going. I'll be posting a lot more fun stuff now that I am back in the "real world!" I can't say enough how happy I am to finally be home!

Wannabe Extrovert

I'm a rather introverted and quiet person. Especially when I meet someone for the first time or if I don't know them very well. I'd much rather listen than speak. Someone asked me one time that if there was anything that I would change about myself if I could. I didn't have to think for very long. It wasn't anything like being skinny or pretty or anything like that. I would just want to be articulate.

It amazes me that I'm as interested in languages and people as much as I am because I am horrible at expressing myself. My mind works faster than my mouth or my pen, so I stumble on my words a lot and sometimes when I'm saying something, some kind of connection between my head and my mouth gets cut and then the word I'm about to say just doesn't want to come out of my mouth for some reason. Also, I have perpetual writer's block. If you have been reading this blog any, you can probably tell (yeah, I go on terrible tangents frequently as well).

I have been complemented about my writing style before, but I think my insecurities about speaking and writing really hurt me sometimes. I know this is something I must overcome somehow. Just how I'm supposed to do it is still a mystery to me, but I'm trying bit by bit to come up with ways to help get better at expressing my thoughts and emotions. How about these for ideas?

 
 

Ideas for breaking out of my shell:

Volunteer for charity or some kind of event

"People who volunteer are 42% more likely than people who don't to say they are very happy with their lives."

Read to children at a library (Reading is Fundamental!)

Force myself to write on this blog, no matter what it is or how crappy I feel it is.

Be more forward about meeting people and making friends.

 
 

After listening to the life stories of a lot of different people, I've decided that up until now at least, I've led a very sheltered and uneventful life. Sure, I've had good times and bad times like everybody else, but no matter how bad you think you've got it, there's somebody out there that has had it worse than you. I've been so very lucky to have had such a boring life.

A part of me wants to keep living this boring existence, but then another part of me wants to break away and live for adventure (whatever that is). Soon, I will begin to undergo a major lifestyle change. I am anticipating that change to be quite difficult at times, but at the same time I'm really expecting it to be quite liberating. Oh, I'm so excited! It'll be just like I'm reborn and I get to start all over again! Of course, I will be coming with some baggage, but who doesn't? Dealing with life's baggage is what makes life interesting, I think. I can never seem to fit it all into one neat and tiny container. Maybe that's why I like boxes so much. (Yeah, that's totally off topic, but I've been trying to pack my bags for the past couple days and I still have a bunch of crap that's not fitting in my bag as nicely as I would like.)

So I've decided that a major part of my new life is going to be spent working on trying to be more extroverted and adventurous. Maybe I should decide on religion as well…um…Religion'll have to be another posting. :)

 
 

Here's some touching quotes about change. Just the type of changes that I will soon be going through…

 
 

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.  - Anatole France

 
 

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.  - Confucius

 
 

If you do not change the direction in which you are going, you will end up where you are headed.   - Confucius

 
 

 
 

 
 

Thoughts on the Election

So, Obama won the election. Good for him. I don't know how good it will be for the country, but we'll just have to wait and see. I would have said the same thing if McCain had won. I'm really not the political type, so it didn't really make much difference to me who won, although I did think that Obama would be the winner either way. As far as I can tell, that's pretty much how the presidency goes: switching back and forth between the two parties every two cycles or so. Four years isn't really long enough probably for the public to get sick of seeing your face on television, so they reelect you for a second term and then by the end of the second term, the people are sick of you and your party being in the hot seat, so they give the presidency to the other party and so on. Maybe that's why people think politics is so exciting, because it's so dynamic and volatile.

 
 

I just really hope things get better for the country, from what they've been. I know a lot of people will either blame or praise Obama for pulling troops out of Iraq, but I think a lot of the troops would be going home from Iraq soon anyway, despite who's president. However, without any big advancement in other sectors such as technology or industry after we go home, like things that happened around the ends of WWI and WWII, I think we will probably be in for a bit of recession or depression anyway.

 
 

Hope for the best but prepare for the worst, right? Good luck, Mr. President.

그냥 Rambling

I don't really know what to write, but I'm going to write anyway and post this. I know it's being a little reckless, but I don't care.

 
 

Every time I think of writing a blog, I almost never know an exact topic, so most of my postings are ramblings like this one.

 
 

You know when you meet someone for the first time, and they just give you a bad feeling? There's this person that I know that has given me that feeling. This person has not spoken more than ten words to me I think, but from quietly observing their behavior towards other people, I can't help but wonder how these types of people survive in the world. Always disrespectful toward superiors and foul-mouthed. Also very confrontational. I'm not really one to judge people, but I just can't see a person like that succeeding in the world. Does this person even know how to smile or be thankful? I may never know.

 
 

Should I even post this? Maybe. Maybe not.

 
 

For the last few days, I really haven't had a lot to do…maybe it's been the last week…I don't know because my days seem to be running together. I keep promising myself that I'm not going to let myself be this dormant when I go home. I really hope I can keep that promise, because this is no way to live.

 
 

The weather is fairly nice now. A few days ago, it was cold and rainy, and I really wished it'd clear up. I really hope it stays this way.

 
 

Today is election day in the states. I voted. May the best candidate win. I am not a political person at all, in fact, I pretty much loathe anything to do with politics, but I feel that voting is pretty much a duty as a citizen and it must be done. And as a woman, my ancestors fought so hard for the right to vote that I feel that voting is an act of respect toward them. I do regret not being more educated about the candidates than I am, but from reading various news articles about the election, I figure I am probably a lot more informed about the candidates than a lot of people who don't even know who the current president is.

 
 

Well, I can't really think of anything else to write, so I guess I better post this before I get frustrated with it and just delete it.

Halloween

So. Today's Halloween. Hmm…Maybe I'll go as a Soldier. What do you think? Oh…but then I have to go somewhere, right? Maybe I'll go to the chow hall. Maybe not…I'm kind of afraid everybody else will steal my idea. Oh well. I'll just have to be more original next year, I guess. Any ideas?

Song of the Day: "Fool in the Rain" by Led Zeppelin

Today has been the first rainy day in I can't remember how long. When it rains here, everything turns to mud. The walk to and from work is terrible. It makes me wish I lived closer to work like the rest of my coworkers because they don't have to walk through all the dirt-turned-mud. I do like watching the lightning though. When I walked to work tonight, the sky was angrily flashing a million shades of purple and hot white. Just as long as I get to watch it from afar, thunder and lightning is actually really enjoyable for me. I think it probably used to scare me sometimes, but now not-so-much.

So, in the spirit of it being a rainy day, today's song of the day is "Fool in the Rain" by Led Zeppelin. This is probably my all-time favorite Led Zeppelin song.



Lyrics


One of my all-time favorite bands, Maná, covered this song in Spanish several years back for a Led Zeppelin tribute album. Here's a video of Alex and Fher talking about the song.






Lyrics (Letras)

Here's some other cool facts about "Fool in the Rain."

Song of the Day: "You" by Raheem DeVaughn

I discovered this song back in May of 2007. I think I was searching on Youtube for videos of the Korean pop star, Rain, to figure out who he was and if he really deserved to be in People Magazine's list of the World's Most Beautiful People. Turns out he probably does deserve it, based on this video…Anyway, the song totally rocks.

Lyrics | You lyrics

Check out more Raheem DeVaughn songs and his music videos on his Myspace page here.

Song of the Day: About

When I have nothing else to blog about, I'm going to blog about one of my favorite songs or artists. I have a bunch of songs on my iPod that I haven't gotten around to listening to yet, and my favorite setting is to put it on shuffle. Sometimes I come across a song that's awesome that I haven't heard yet or haven't really listened to the words closely before and it kind of strikes a chord with me. I'll post the song with the lyrics and hopefully a video or a link to the video. Enjoy.

Finally! A New Layout

Ok, I'm not completely satisfied with this layout and there's a bunch of bugs in it, but I think I'm done messing with it for a while. The archive button and search box at the top don't work, but I don't really know how to fix that yet, so if somebody knows, please comment and help me out! Thanks! Ah, and please let me know what you think of the layout.

우정 밖에 바라는게 없어요. 그냥 편하고 친하게 지내려고요.

There was a T-shirt I saw not long ago that said, "I'm shy, not anti-social. You can talk to me." I thought I should probably get that shirt.

 
 

I like chatting on the Internet sometimes. I've been chatting with people all over the world for probably the better part of ten years, off and on. Ever since I started using the Internet. I've met some really cool people through chat, although I have never really met any of them in real life. I think part of me has always been a little paranoid about talking to maybe the wrong person who will end up being a real weirdo or worse.

 
 

It's hard though. A lot of times, I go into chat rooms because I'm bored, and it's really difficult to find people that are actually interested in having a half-way intelligent conversation. I've never really been one for voice or video chat, so a lot of people shy away from me when I tell them I don't have that capability. I'm even a little scared about revealing my picture or receiving pictures of people. A lot of the conversations I've had with people in just regular chat rooms have been difficult. It sometimes seems like the only people online are foreign men who either can't speak English or they can't type and all they want is cybersex or they just tell you how much they love you and how pretty you are even though you haven't even shown them your picture yet. It's really fake feeling, and going into chat rooms when I'm bored is probably not a good idea anyway because this kind of interaction just makes me even more bored.

 
 

I think that the key though is to find a niche market that you are interested in, and you'll have a better chance of meeting some like-minded people. These days, I've been spending some time on Livemocha.com, a social language learning community where you can make friends that speak the language you're learning and you can chat with them and do language exercises and get feedback from the community on them. Sure, I've talked to a few weirdos on there, but I think the majority of my "friends" on Livemocha are pretty cool people who, like me, are trying to expose themselves to languages.

 
 

At this point in my Internet life, with social networking and knowledge sharing so important to the very existence of the Internet, I think I might be willing to meet some of my new found "friends" in real life. I've always been kind of a shy and quiet person when I first meet somebody, but maybe after chatting with these people for a while, I will have opened up to a few enough so that when we'd meet it wouldn't really be like meeting somebody for the very first time and not knowing anything about them. The way I see it, I probably have a lot more to gain from the experience than to lose…and hey…I might get some yummy meals or good sightseeing guides out of the deal. So…wanna be friends? :)

I think I've fixed one of my major problems with this...

My blog titles have been messed up for a long time. I think I may have fixed it, so this is a test...

Getting a new layout is going to take a lot of work!

Well, I found a bunch of cool layouts, but I couldn't get any of them to work the way I wanted them to, so I'm reverting back to my old layout for the time being and I'll try again soon. Grr.

Song of the Day: "Home" by Michael Bublé and Blake Shelton




Lyrics | Home lyrics

Today, as I was listening to shuffle mode on my iPod at work, I came across this song by Blake Shelton and it really touched me and made me want to go home even more. After doing a little bit of research, I realized that this song is originally a Michael Bublé song. I don't know which version I like better because they're both really good and the whole reason I like the song is the lyrics, but I think I like Blake Shelton's video better. Check out Michael Bublé's video here.

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Now playing: Michael Bublé - Home
via FoxyTunes

Ok, I've finally decided to change my layout. It's a work in progress.

Got this in my email earlier today, and it does a pretty good job of summing up my life these days. The things I had just a minute ago tend to be thoughts, not necessarily concrete things though...now, what was I doing?

Greased Lightbox - Update available (v0.17)

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Upcoming plans for this blog

I knew when I did it that deleting a whole blog just because of one person's negativity towards me was probably not the best decision, but I felt a need for a drastic change at the time anyway, and that was probably the most drastic thing I could have done at the time that didn't damage me very much.

 

I've been thinking a lot about what direction I want this blog to take in the future. I'm generally not the most creative person in the world, but I occasionally have the overwhelming urge to create something. I have the urge, yes, but actually starting and finishing a project tends to be very difficult for me.

 

Right now, I'm writing this posting from my Gmail account, and I'm not even sure if I'll be able to finish it or whether I'll just let it be filed away into my drafts folder. If it actually even gets to my Blogger account, that'll be a miracle.

 

Ha. It's a little ironic to me that it's always so easy for me to write about my insecurities about writing, but so difficult for me to write about much of anything else.

 

Anyway...I must stay on topic, and my original motivation for this post was to talk about my upcoming plans for this blog. I'm planning on getting a sweet smartphone when I get back home. I'll probably end up getting a BlackBerry of some sort, probaby a Curve. I'm making Sean get the same one, although he's not as in love with gadgetry as I am. I've never really used the camera/video camera on my phones before, but I'm going to make a concentrated effort to make more videos and take more pictures with my phone. I'm also going to figure out how to post those videos and pics to my blog here and to Youtube and Flickr and whatever other service I can.

 

The general subject of this will be my regular life, I'm thinking. I'm hoping that this will make me try and be more interesting. (Not to say that I'm not interesting already, of course. ^^)

 

I also want to do something about this layout I've got here. I've had this same layout since I started this blog, more than two years ago. Blogger has had a bunch of updates and now you can add a bunch of cool stuff to your layout, and with my current layout, I'd have to completely redo it in order to try out any of the cool new tools. So, someday, I'm gonna have to take some serious time and change the layout.

 

Plans, plans and more plans. I'm really excited to start putting these plans into action. My life is REALLY going to take a drastic turn very soon, and I'm SO excited about it...just being stuck in this planning phase is really starting to drive me a little crazy, I think. I really hope the next few months go by quickly but slow enough for me to thoroughly enjoy all the good parts!

 

------ Listening to "Pinhead" by The Ramones

Lately, I've been kind of feeling down in the dumps and not wanting to really do anything. Day in and day out, I go to work, go to chow, sleep, surf on the Internet. It seems like my life is set on repeat. The only reason that I can think of for why I'm feeling this way is I'm just getting really tired of the monotony here and I'm also getting really anxious to finally go home and begin my new life as a civilian. 

I've learned a valuable lesson this time around though: change is a good thing and not only is it inevitable, it's an essential part of life. I'd like to be somewhere in the middle of always doing something different all the time and having a solid routine. I really think I've gone too long on the same work hours and the exact same job this whole time. I really should have switched shifts in order to work days for a while. It's too late for that now though, I think. 

I think my only option for now is to just go home. I've just got to endure a little while longer... Man, these days are long...

The end of Yummy Korean
So... I blogged about Korean for a couple months because I thought I would have some content to contribute, but it appears that I didn't, so I've gone and deleted that blog entirely. In all honesty, I probably should delete this blog too, since I hardly ever post anything of real interest on it anyway. Maybe I should just quit everything and try to find what really interests me, because I don't really know right now. Apparently, I'm unmotivated, lazy and uncreative. I don't want to be that way. I want to do something meaningful. My whole time in the military has left me feeling utterly useless. I thought I wanted to learn a language, but in the six years that I've been studying Korean, I'm still barely able to have an intelligent conversation with somebody. I have trouble communicating even in English, how can I possibly expect to be fluent in any other language? Maybe I should just give up language learning all together, and just focus on my travel education. But would I even be any good at that? I don't even know what I'm good at. I thought I was okay at Korean, but I guess I'm not.
These past couple weeks have had me really burnt out, and I guess right now I'm feeling really depressed. I hate feeling depressed. I think what I need to do is just take a deep breath and tell myself "Tomorrow will be better." I really hope so.

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Now playing: The Beatles - Yesterday
via FoxyTunes

Introducing: 냠냠...Yummy Korean!

This blog, Blue Oceans and Palm Trees started out pretty much as a diary blog of sorts. I didn't really have any idea of a direction that it should go, and subsequently, I started ignoring it a lot.

One of my passions right now is learning Korean. I've been studying Korean for the better part of 6 years now, and I am really just now starting to enjoy it. So, in order to help organize my Korean studies a little bit more, I've decided to start a blog called 냠냠...Yummy Korean. (냠냠 means "Nyam Nyam" and is an onomatopoeia that's pretty much like you're chewing on something or eating with gusto, I guess.)

I'll continue to blog on here periodically about stuff in my life that's not related to Korean, but for the time being, I'll probably stop blogging on here for a while.

If you're interested, click here to check out my new blog! I still have a lot of work to do, but it's coming along quite nicely, I think!

Have a good day!
Kendra

Oh, Mojito!


I was reading my blogs earlier today and I came across a recipe that said it was a Cherry Mojito. The Mojito is one of my very favorite cocktails, so I thought I'd check it out. The recipe sounded tasty, but was entirely NOT a Mojito, and so I got a little upset for somebody ruining my favorite drink. Why did they ruin it? Well, this drink was made out of vodka and had no mint! ARGH!

A mojito has five basic ingredients: rum, mint, lime, sugar and club soda, and there are a bunch of slight variations. I'm generally a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to things like this, so since the mojito is a Cuban drink, I like to use Cuban rum. Because I live in the United States and we've got an embargo on pretty much all-things-Cuban, I use the Cuban exile rum, Bacardi. (Yes, I know it says Puerto Rican Rum all over the bottle, but the Bacardi brand of rum is originally from Cuba.) I also use white rum. The mint and lime will be fresh and depending on what's available and what my mood is, I usually use simple syrup or regular sugar.

To make a mojito, you must have a muddler. A muddler is pretty much a stick that helps to mash up your mint and lime. When you make a mojito, you start with a Collins glass. (I eyeball pretty much everything except the rum.) Put a few mint leaves in your glass and cut your lime in wedges and put about half of it in the glass. Take your muddler and gently smash it around a bit in order to release the essential oils in the mint and marry it with the lime. (I sometimes put the sugar in before muddling, if I'm using regular sugar. Simple syrup doesn't work as well if you put it in before muddling.) It doesn't make much difference. After you muddle, add ice to the glass and then 1.5-2 ounces of rum. If you haven't put in the sugar yet, do that also. Top the glass off with the club soda and stir. Yum.

Some people don't like the hassle of muddling the fresh mint and lime, so they opt for the mojito mix. I'm sure some of them are tasty, but like I said before, I'm a traditionalist, so I prefer the fresh mojito. I think it tastes so much better! If I ever have a bar, the mojito will definitely be on the drink menu and it will always be made fresh!

That's it for me...Happy muddling!

Note: The picture in this post is my mojito from the bar at Hotel El Convento in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. If you ever get the chance, I recommend staying at least one night at Hotel El Convento. It is a fabulous hotel in the heart of Old San Juan that was originally a convent (hence the name) in the 15th century, and is one of the very best and most unique hotels in Puerto Rico.

A Little on LOVE <3

My lovely Aunt Sandy sent me the following in an email and it got me thinking about love and all that. I even got out my Bible to look up 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 and I realized, not for the first time, that love is a wonderful and magical thing. Also, I'm a big sap when it comes to love stories. :)

Love can not be measured in time or in value, not in measurement of a rule or gauged by a scale.

Love can not be thrown away like rubbish, or whisked away in the breeze or take flight by a gust of wind and banished from your heart or soul.

Love should not be tossed into the winds as though it were a pail of water.

Love should be taken to the heart, cherished and kept within the portals of the heart, held onto as though it was in intricate part of your own being.

Love comes into our lives through different stages of our time on Earth.

Love is granted by God to allow your heart to care for someone more than your own being.

Love comes in so many levels of emotion, giving way to tenderness of heart as is shown by the love of a Mother, a sibling, a spouse, a child, a lover or a friend.

Love comes in the form of compassion for another human being, allowing yourself to make someone 's world brighter, just by knowing you cherish them.

My Aunt Sandy wrote this. Isn't it pretty and so true? Love you! 사랑해요!


"Amor is to love you, Amor is to care, Amor is two people with something to share. Amor for the Spanish, Amour for the French, Love in any language always means the same!" - "Amor" by Amigos Invisibles
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Now playing: Amigos Invisibles - Amor
via FoxyTunes

Love Me If You Can

I know that some of you may not like country music, but oh well. I went through my stage of hating it as well, and coincidentally, it was Toby Keith's song, "American Soldier" that got me listening to country again after about 6 years of hating it.

I've seen Toby Keith in concert twice. In Iraq. It's kind of become a tradition, I guess. I got the opportunity to see him for the second time about a week of so ago, and I learned that that show was like his 115th or something show that he's done for us deployed troops since the war started. That's one of the many reasons I admire him. Another reason is that Toby Keith is an amazing songwriter and several of his songs have really meant a lot to me. One of my favorite things about country music is that a majority of the songs tell a story, so not only do the artists write songs, but they tell stories as well. (Another cool country storyteller/singer that I've started liking recently is Brad Paisley.)

Anyway, to make a long story short and before I go off on any more tangents, "Love Me If You Can" is a really great song, my new favorite song. Download it or buy his newest album, "Big Dog Daddy." Below are the lyrics and pictures from the concert.

Love Me If You Can

[verse 1]

Sometimes Think The Poor Is Necessary
Every Night I Pray For Peace On Earth
And I Hand Down My Dollars To The Homeless
But Believe That Every Able Soul Should Work

[pre Chorus]

My Father Gave Me My Shotgun
That I'll Hand Down To My Son
Try To Teach Him Everything It Means

[chorus]

I'm A Man Of My Convictions
Call Me Wrong, Call Me Right
But I Bring My Better Angels To Every Fight
You May Not Like Where I'm Goin'
But You Sure Know Where I Stand
Hate Me If You Want To
Love Me If You Can

[verse 2]

I Stand By My Right To Speak Freely
But I Worry 'bout What Kids Learn From Tv
And Before All Of Debatin' Turns To Angry Words And Hate
Sometimes We Should Just Agree To Disagree

[pre Chorus]

And I Believe That Jesus
Looks Down Here And Sees Us
And If You Ask Him, He Would Say

[chorus Out]


Have a great day!
Kendra

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Now playing: Toby Keith - Love Me If You Can
via FoxyTunes

I like to E

So it took me some six days or something to get from D to E...if you notice, I just posted D, but I wrote it several days ago. I thought I'd be creative and put some pictures of stuff on there...who knows if that even worked. I'll have to check when I can actually access Blogger and fix it if needed. Ugh. Well, on to E...

I like to eat.

Everybody has to eat to live, right? I like to live, thus I like to eat. I'm a bored eater though, and that isn't a very good thing, but good food is AWESOME!

I like to explore.

I like to find out where a path leads.

Geez...as soon as I start writing, I start feeling unmotivated to write. I am going to eventually get to Z though, even if I can only post "I like to X..." I can do it!

I can't believe some people blog for a living. They must really have a lot to say...but then again, some blogs I've seen say nothing at all...much like this one, I suppose.

At any rate, have a great day. :)

I like to D

I like to drive. I like finding out where a path takes me. Sometimes I go on marathon drives to nowhere, just to see where it takes me. It's fun to just drive around by myself and listen to music blaring on the radio. I don't have to fight with anybody about what I listen to then.

I like to dance. You don't have to be a good dancer to like to dance. It's all about moving to the mad beats, yo. I do get terribly self-concious though, so I usually end up dancing in my room when nobody's around. ;)

I like to doodle. When I have paper and a writing utensil and I'm not actively engaged, I usually end up doodling all over the paper. I like to sometimes just write whatever words come to mind and draw patterns. I am not terribly artistic, but I love innovative and unique design.

I like to drink. Not necessarily alcoholic drinks, but I like tasty drinks. I love going to restaurants and getting a neat drink from their drink menu.

A little on this thread...I've only been doing this for four days now, and I'm already getting tired of it. Maybe it's just my mood in the past few days, or maybe I'm just tired. I know I'm tired at this moment.

My Photo was included in a Travel Guide!

Ruby Falls
Originally uploaded by kaygpea

Yay! This is kind of old news, maybe a couple weeks, but it's new to you! Schmap found one of my photos that I posted on Flickr from my trip to Chattanooga in January 2005 and they included it in their Travel Guide for Chattanooga! Cool Huh?

I like to C

I could only think of one thing that I like to do that starts with C today. That's cry.

I like to cry sometimes. I generally don't like to though. I am a pretty emotional person though, so I sometimes can't help myself. I almost always cry during sad movies or books, and I always get teary eyed whenever I hear about troops deploying or redeploying. Sometimes even, I give myself a headache because I cry so much. The Notebook (both the movie and the book) always make me bawl like a baby!

I hate it at times though, because since I am an emotional person, when I get really angry, I tend to cry. I usually feel so helpless when I'm that angry, because at those times I feel like the circumstances have rendered me powerless and all I can do at the moment is cry. But then I feel weak because I broke down enough to cry and that makes me feel even worse.

Well, that's all I can do for today...I think I'll go home and watch a sad movie now. Good thing I have a bunch of tissues by my bed.

Tomorrow is D...there's lots of things I like to do that start with D, so be prepared!

I like to Believe

Today there's only one thing I like to do that starts with B...one thing that I could think of anyway.

believe

intransitive verb

1 a: to have a firm religious faith b: to accept as true, genuine, or real <ideals we believe in> <believes in ghosts>

2: to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something <believe in exercise>

3: to hold an opinion : think <I believe so>

transitive verb

1 a: to consider to be true or honest <believe the reports> <you wouldn't believe how long it took> b: to accept the word or evidence of <I believe you> <couldn't believe my ears>

2: to hold as an opinion : suppose <I believe it will rain soon>

— be·liev·er noun

— not believe

: to be astounded at <I couldn't believe my luck>

I don't really have a firm religious faith in anything right now...I was raised as a Christian and I believe in God and everything, but I always feel that when I go to church, I feel like I'm being scolded for sinning and if I don't repent for my sins I'm going to hell. I don't know about all that. I like to believe that God loves everybody.

I like truth and honesty in life. I like to believe that there is good in everything, though I do also believe there is bad to everything. Life is like that, harmonious. Good and bad, happy and sad, yin and yang. One person has one belief and another person has a complete opposite belief.

Ok, that's it for right now...I'll try to make tomorrow better. Can't really concentrate on this right now because of too many different thoughts running through my head...man, it's going to be difficult to get to sleep tonight.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIFE
	Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
	When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
	Follow the three res. Respect for self, Respect for others, and Responsibility for all your actions.
	Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
	Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
	Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
	When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
	Spend some time alone every day.
	Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
	Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
	Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
	A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
	In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
	Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
	Be gentle with the earth.
	Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
	Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
	Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
	Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

These instructions have been floating around for a while. Some say they're from the Dalai Lama, and some say they're not. I don't care who they come from, they're still great rules to live by in my opinion, so I'm sharing them. Have a great day. :)

I Like To A

Here goes for my new topic I talked about yesterday (or at least I think it was yesterday).

I like to ACHIEVE.

achieve

transitive verb

1 : to carry out successfully : accomplish <achieve a gradual increase in production>

2 : to get or attain as the result of exertion : reach <achieved a high degree of skill> <achieved greatness>

intransitive verb : to attain a desired end or aim : become successful

Like everybody, I like to achieve my goals. I sometimes can be categorized as an overachiever I guess, but I don't really like that. I try not to set goals for myself that I have no hope of achieving, and I generally don't like others to set my goals for me. They tend to set goals that I can't really achieve.

I like small goals the best. For instance, if I'm having a hard time getting up out of bed (which was pretty hard for me this morning), I can start by saying to myself, "OK, let's just get one foot on the floor." I do that, I've achieved a goal and feel good about it, and it makes me want to work harder and achieve my ultimate goal at the moment: getting up.

Doing simple stuff can lead to a lot more...I gotta keep telling myself that. One foot in front of the other. One day at a time. I'll get there somehow, even if I have to take baby steps the whole way. That's achievement.

I like to ASSOCIATE.

associate

transitive verb

1: to join as a partner, friend, or companion

2obsolete : to keep company with : attend

3: to join or connect together : combine

4: to bring together or into relationship in any of various intangible ways (as in memory or imagination)

intransitive verb

1: to come or be together as partners, friends, or companions

2: to combine or join with other parts : unite

Also see CORRELATE

When I was brainstorming earlier and came up with associate, I was thinking more of the third definition, to join or connect together, but I like to do the others as well. Therefore, I'll start with my "original" definition and then write a little on the other. In other words, I'll associate the definitions.

My friends have noticed that I make a lot of weird associations sometimes. It's just how I think. The world is all connected somehow anyway, right? It's neat to me to think about how things can relate to each other. I could use correlate in the same context, but the term that usually comes to mind for me is associate. I take my past experiences and thoughts and associate them with what's happening to me in the present.

Thinking like this, by making associations, can unfortunately be troublesome at times. I tend to go associate one thing with another and that makes me think about the other thing and then I associate that thing with something else and I get terribly distracted by this tangent. This is how I can spend hours upon hours just surfing the Internet. For instance, I could be looking up Burj Al Arab, a terribly expensive and luxurious hotel in Dubai. The hotel itself is designed to resemble a sail, so then I start thinking about sailing. Sails go on boats and boats go in water and people dive from boats into the water...I've always wanted to learn how to scuba dive, and so I start looking up how you get diver certification. Then once I get certified, I have to go someplace to dive, right? So where should I go? I've heard Belize is great for diving...and on and on it goes until I forget whatever I was looking up in the first place. Association...it can be a good thing or a bad thing. I still like to do it either way.

OK, that's all I can write for now. Tomorrow is B.

In the spirit of Sesame Street: I like to...

Last night, when I was struggling to go to sleep because my mind was racing, I was thinking about starting a series about what I liked to do, and to make it more than just a one post deal, I thought that maybe I could make it a daily thing that I do...at least for a little while. And how could I stretch this out to be more than one post? I could do a letter a day for 26 days! Like Sesame Street's whole thing, "Today was brought to you by the letter A" or something. What do you think? I left my brainstorming notes in my room, so I'll tear it out of my notebook and bring it in tomorrow and start on A.

Yay. a project. Let's see if I can complete it!

Bits of Wisdom From The Cheers Theme Song

Where Everybody Knows Your Name by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo - Cheers Lyrics

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.

You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows
your name.

Full Lyrics never actually aired

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got;
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?

All those night when you've got no lights,
The check is in the mail;
And your little angel
Hung the cat up by it's tail;
And your third fiance didn't show;

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same;
You want to be where everybody knows your name.

Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee's dead;
The morning's looking bright;
And your shrink ran off to Europe,
And didn't even write;
And your husband wants to be a girl;

Be glad there's one place in the world
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to go where people know,
People are all the same;
You want to go where everybody knows your name.

Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came...

copied from http://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/cheerslyrics.html

I was just listening to this a little while ago on my Zune, and it got me thinking about being social...even when you don't really think of yourself as being a very social person, like myself, you tend to yearn for a place like Cheers. I tend to not talk to many people, and I pretty much stick with the small group of people I know and with whom I feel most comfortable, but I hope to one day find a place like this. I may have already found it somehow, but I don't know...since I'm a maximizer, I guess I'll always be looking for my "best" place. I just hope that place is like Cheers.

Bits of wisdom from my Dove Dark Chocolate wrapper

"Be michievous. It feels good."

Now listening to "Rosas" by La Oreja de Van Gogh

I just joined Bookcrossing!

So I finally joined Bookcrossing. I thought it'd be fun. It's kind of like catch and release for books you've read or at least have come into your possession. By assigning a special tracking number to your books and writing your personal review on the book, you can track your book from owner to owner and see what they thought about your book (given that they have went to Bookcrossing.com and logged that they have caught your book). It's a neat way to be a little bit more social, so sign up and put some books on there! Yeah!

Now listening to: "Control" by Puddle of Mudd

Ramblings - A Little Bit About My Writing Style

I always hated writing papers in school...this is why I almost failed English every year in high school. My proudest achievement in high school English was when I got a C on my junior year research paper. I turned it in on time. I actually started the paper like the night before it was due and worked through the night. I only got a couple hours of sleep that night, and my mom ended up taking me to school in the middle of the day, right before my English class. Even though I got a C, I was proud of myself and felt good about the paper. I don't care what my teacher thought of it...

In Ohio, like every two years or so, you used to have to take proficiency tests to be able to get to the next grade. I remember writing a story on my writing test in sixth grade that I remember being so horrible that I was surprised I never had to retake the test. I'd like to read that story again someday.

The reason why I always had trouble writing was because I could never be trusted to write about just one topic and my rambling thoughts are very hard to organize and put them into a final product that can fully satisfy me. Even as I am writing this, I'm getting distracted and I'm having to try very hard to even stick to the topic I'm trying to talk about. I'm a perfectionist too, so I keep looking back at what I just wrote and I keep making changes to grammar and usage and then I get so distracted and frustrated that I end up just giving up on writing anything at all and then I have to just move on to something a little less taxing on my mind.

Despite my horrible writing style, I do realize I need to start writing more and be less critical of myself. I know what I want to say most of the time, but I need to find some way of getting my point across in a precise and clear manner. So in an effort to at least get some writing out there, I'm going to start writing a little bit on this blog, even if it is about nothing...like how this post is ending up. Oh god, I have to stop writing now...

Now listening to "LoveStoned" by Justin Timberlake

Update - Yeah, so just in case you were interested, I was looking through my old documents, and here was a little blurb I felt like writing like a month ago, pretty much about the same thing!

Thoughts 15JAN about 0100hrs

I think I have constant writer's block. I have so many ideas in my head, but whenever I actually sit down to put my thoughts on paper or in this case, the computer, my mind goes blank and I can't seem to think of anything to write or type. Whenever I do actually start writing, I keep fretting over grammar and correctness, and it takes so long for me to write what i want to that i either get side tracked or forget what my whole point for writing was in the first place. Maybe it's not so much writer's block as it is a mild case of attention deficit disorder. I remember reading my old report cards from school and my teachers wrote things like, "Kendra is more concerned with socializing than staying on task." Yeah, i acknowledge that i have trouble staying on one task sometimes, but generally, i am not the most social person in the world...no, take that back. I am probably a closet social butterfly. I agree, it sounds crazy, but it's true. i think one of my greatest downfalls is that i'm not fluent nor am i articulate. i have never been good at doing speeches and since i have this mild ADD, i have never been able to write more than maybe a paragraph before i'm sidetracked...ugh. even now, it's almost a physical feeling. I'm getting bored of writing and I have to do something else before i fall asleep...and so goes the days of my life...

 

This is reassuring for me. I definitely am not wasting my life then! I tend to be a bit of a packrat, but sometimes I go nuts and just start cleaning and organizing and then I feel really good about myself and my accomplishments. Then I continue my existence and everything goes to shit until the next time I freak out. It's fun. :)

- Now listening to 알면서 by 비

Here's some pics from our trip to Korea. We went to Korea for our mid-tour leave from Iraq. It was so exciting to finally get the chance to go, and now I am planning on going to Yonsei when I get out to study Korean further. We also went to Jeju Island, but I haven't had a chance to post the pictures yet, will soon though.

Have a great day!

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Now playing: Juanes - Ahi Le Va
via FoxyTunes

I Promise

I promise to blog more often. I don't do a whole lot else other than work and type useless emails anyway. I hope everybody has a great day!