Merry Christmas!

So it’s Christmas Eve and I’ve spent hours cooking and cleaning around the house. I went to two different groceries because I forgot to buy some ingredients earlier and it was a battlefield out there. Long lines and people fighting over parking spaces.

Our annual Christmas dinner is always at my folks house. And since mom isn’t here until this coming Sunday, I’m in charge of the cooking. Well, originally, we were going to cater and just bring the food. But my big aunt thought that it would be more better for us if every family bring their own dish. Little does she know that’s more work for us because I would still have to cook something at least. So instead of ordering food, I am making pumpkin pie, potato salad, macaroni salad, broccoli salad, fried shrimp, and pork cutlet. Yes, i know that a lot of salad, but that’s what I’m good at. I am not really good at cooking korean food  unless it’s a korean roll and that takes A LOT of time and energy.

So I already made 3 dishes and I’m about to make another one tonight. I just cleaned up the bathroom and will clean up my room. Rest is up to my dad, since my brother is completely useless at the moment.

Yesterday at work, there was a cookie swap. I just made brownie out of the box while others brought in their family recipes. I only participated because I wanted sample everyone else’s. And I made brownie because I tend to burn cookies every freaking time I bake them. So anyway, I was full of sweet yesterday. And then we were given lunch at work. We had Potbelly. Mmmm… I forgot how much I missed Potbelly. It’s hard to find Potbelly in Baltimore area and my neighborhood.

Anyway, the good news is that my mom is coming back from Korea this Sunday. Yay!!!!!

Thank goodness it’s Friday

I’m so ready to just sleep  and sleep. Maybe the snow is a good thing. I was planning on going shopping for myself since there are so many sales, and also shopping for Christmas dinner. We are having 30+ people at my house for Christmas dinner and every families are bringing a dish each.

Anyway, I’ve been eating so much sweets lately. truffles, chocolate chip cookies, cupcakes, black bottom cupcakes, peanut butter cookies, etc. I’m afraid to step on the scale. This whole week has been pretty intense at work and I guess my body needed to be filled with sweets to reward myself. And I’ve been getting headaches, maybe it’s the stress or it’s the low pressure that has settled down recently. I’ve been popping Motrin like crazy.

I found out today that my two coworkers were planning to haze me when I start for work. I heard they were practicing this weird psycho dance to scare the crap out of me. They explained they were pretty stressed out with overloaded work and they were losing it. I could see how stressed they were when I first arrived. one designer spent over 70 hours working in a week. . . anyway, I don’t know. I mean, I’ve been doing the late shift and they’ve been able to go home in decent time. They are being able to take vacations this month, too.

Oh, and i signed up for web design II class for next semester. It’s early in the morning, so I can just go to work right after. I asked the two designers if it was ok for me to do late shift for Thursdays from February to May. They were actually happy with it since Thursdays are really busy for late shifts. I’m told that my work could reimburse me for the tuition fee. I don’t know if I’m going to ask for me. It’s not much anyway.

take that bitches!

So today at work was really intense. Thursdays are generally busy, I’ve been told. And to top it off, the supervisors gave me the info. that I needed hours late. I was getting really antsy and overwhelmed by 5-6pm. I worked like crazy. With my eyes on fire and my teeth grinding as editors looked over my shoulders on and off. The rest of the designers left me to do it all alone. They believe I can handle the paper alone after 6pm. To top it off, tonight was my big boss’ turn to overlook the paper. So he was constantly in the art dept area. He jokingly asked me what’s tomorrow’s date ……arg

I seriously did not want to finish my work later than 8pm. I was pissed off since several days ago and I was ready to prove them I was top of it all. I wasn’t going to make myself look bad just because they gave me the stuff late.

To my surprise, I finished it 7:50pm. And 8pm is the deadline. It was my record and I was ready to get off from my chair and yell at my big boss, “Take that! I finished earlier even when you gave me the fucking layouts four hours late!”

Of course, i didn’t say that, but as I was driving home, I was shaking with adrenaline. There is no way in hell I’m going to let them think I’m incompetent IN ANY WAY. As far as I’m concerned, their technology and their way of working is fucking five years behind.

first screw up

I am craving about dozen chocolate cupcakes just about right now. Today, work was boring until 4pm. Everything was slow and I was just sitting at my desk, waiting for stories to come in so I can work like crazy while the editors stand over my shoulders watching me.

Well, around 4pm, I found out that last night, I mistakenly put the wrong date on today’s paper. So today, which is Tuesday, the paper came out as Wednesday. The date, 15th 2009 was correct, but instead of Tuesday, I wrote down Wednesday on the front cover of the newspaper and NO BODY noticed it! Yes, it is the editor’s and copy editor’s job to catch any mistakes, but our copy editor was off yesterday and two editors were covering for him. We all looked at the paper carefully, but sadly, we missed the most important part. The front page date.

Ugh. I felt like shit when I was told by this nice editor. He’s a nice guy and he took the blame for it because it was his job to look out for stuff like this. But if I had taken the time to carefully examine the dates, this would have never happened. Funny thing was that everything else inside the paper was fine. just that god damn date on the front page. My only excuse was that I was actually also working on Wednesday’s paper when I was doing the front page yesterday, so I got little confused. But that’s not acceptable. I should be able to work with different dates and days at the same time.

Anyway, so I was feeling like crap already. Although, I wasn’t feeling as bad as  i used to when I screwed up something at previous work. Because back then, people wouldn’t really scold me or anything, they would just point it out to me with a gentle smile and say ‘let’s not do it again’, ‘let’s be very careful’, or usually it never happens because my former copy editor and editors were like a hawk to find this kind of stuff. which made me feel a lot worse whenever I did something wrong…

Well, after the editor came to me and pointed out, about an hour later my big boss came to me and sat on my desk and told me it was embarrassing to have this kind of mistake. blah blah blah, making me feel like shit again. Of course, I apologized multiple times. But now I am getting little pissed. I’m pissed at myself for making a simplest mistake (which by the way, other designers told me they all have done it before) and I’m also getting pissed at the fact that my big boss felt the need to lecture me like a five year old.

Ugh… and like I have told some of my friends, there are just too many information about certain person’s personal life at work. Not only is that person messing around with one of the coworkers, I overheard today that she’s also messing around with another person who is not a coworker. I didn’t mean to hear their conversation, but they were talking about it 2 feet away from my desk. Honestly, I really want to respect and like my coworker. She has very interesting personality. but my respect for her as a woman and as a person drops down as the days goes by.

…

So… I no longer cry myself to sleep at night. So that’s good news. I just tried to keep myself busy with work and school final project. I just talked to my mom a few hours ago. We didn’t talk much, but I asked her for more details. So basically, Jin Sil felt something hard right below her belly button around January. And she had a stomachache. So she went to her regular doctor who didn’t think there was anything abnormal. Told her she was fine. She didn’t think of going to the gyno for ultra sound. By March, I guess the pain progressed and she finally went to the huge hospital for more thorough check up. That’s when they found out she had cancer. She only had 2 months after that to live her life. The cancer had spread too much to do anything to save her.

Like I was researching online, fallopian tube cancer is very rare and hard to detect. You have to do ultra sound to see if there is anything wrong. And it’s so rare that I guess doctors don’t think of it as a possibility right away…

——

Anyway… so I kept myself busy trying to finish up my web design project. It’s live online if anyone is interested. Click below image to take a look. If I had more time and more energy, I would have put up more pictures, but it didn’t happen. And I know I got some grammar errors and such… This whole web site was about swapping images and roll over images, css, and div tags. I’m thinking about taking the next level course for web design if my work allows me.

http://www.jenniferparkdesign.com/travel/

fallopian tube cancer

So I finally found out  what Jin Sil died of. As much as I want to deny that she is gone, I was confirmed once again by my dad tonight. He said she died of fallopian tube cancer. I’m just stunned by this. How could she die of cancer? And fallopian tube cancer is one of the rarest cancer that usually affects white women in their late 50s. What the fuck is wrong with this world? Is this some kind of sick joke that the universe is trying to play? Why her? Why this cancer?

My dad who talked to my mom over the phone, said Jin Sil complained about her stomachache one day. But by the time she went to the hospital to check it out, it was too late. She passed away late May.

And what was I doing in late May? I was giddy over taking the trip to Europe. I know I couldn’t have known. But I still feel bad about it. She was dying and I had no idea. At times like this, I wish I had some kind of intuition to feel if something’s wrong with the people I care about.

Dad said my mom went to the cathedral church with Jin Sil’s parents to visit her memorial yesterday. I don’t know how her parents are dealing with this… She had such a great relationship with her dad and her mother always thought of her as great daughter.

Now I can’t stop picturing her in a coffin laying there. The last time I saw her, she was smiling. She was so witty and cheerful.

I tried to shake myself whenever this horrible images of her starting forming in my mind. I’m glad that work is busy and it doesn’t give me any chance to start moping about it. But when I’m home or driving, I can’t stop picturing her.

Life is too short

Life is too short to be miserable. At least I owe that much to those who died young. I found out this morning that my childhood friend Jin Sill from Korea had died this summer. And I had no idea. I thought she was just busy. The last contact I had with her was back in February through facebook.

My mom heard it from her friend who happens to know Jin Sil’s family too. She had died due to some problems with her uterus, ovary, or cervic or something. My mom told me the medical term in Korean, but I don’t know what that is in English. She thinks that Jin Sil didn’t go for check ups and when she found out, it was too late.

How can she be dead? She was only 28. A year younger than me. She had bubbly personality and she taught elementary kids. She liked to travel and she visited me back in 2001 summer.

Throughout my teenage years and up to my college years, she and I sent each other letters weekly. She wrote daily letters to me and I to her. It was both theraputic for both of us. She was stressed with school and I was stressed adjusting to new environment in US. I still have all of her letters. I have all of her hopes, dreams, and worries in those boxes. We sent each other letters, gifts, and little stuffs throughout the years, trying to cheer each other up and let each other know that we were there for each other to hear our worries. She is the main reason why I still can write Korean well because I was writing in Korean to her. And she sometimes tried to write the letters in English.

It’s so strange. Last night, I was working on my web design. I decided to do a travel blog of mine. So I was scanning pictures of me and Jin Sil back when I visited Korea in early 2001. I was remembering the old times as I was building my websites and looking through old photos of us together. Then this morning, I woke up at the sound of phone ringing non-stop. It was my mom. She told me what happened and I just started to cry. There was no way that she was gone. I thought she was just living her life. I thought she was doing fine. She certainly didn’t seem sick when I was talking to her through facebook. She told me to say hi to my parents and told me that her dad wanted to say hi to my dad. My parents and her parents are friends who happened to live in the same neighborhood when we were little… I saw pictures of her traveling southern asia, having fun. Having a time of her life. How the fuck can she be dead? She wasn’t even fucking 30!

How could this happen? She had dreams. She wanted to visit US again and this time do a road trip from L.A. to Seattle.

Both of my brother and dad are in somewhat in denial. My dad is mad, saying my mom probably heard it wrong. I wish that was true. I really wish . . . Maybe it’s me being in denial. I wrote her an email asking her to write back to me. I tried to search her facebook friends who may know what happened to her because her account is still active. The last entry was my writing on her wall back in February 15. No one wrote on her wall after that.

My mom said she’s going to try contact Jin Sil’s mother. I just can’t even imagine her parents going through this. She was so smart and so cheerful.

I’m sad and angry. While she was dying, I was out there having fun traveling this summer. I had no idea.

She can’t be gone. She just can’t…

it’s snowing

I woke up this morning and saw that it was snowing outside. I seriously thought it wasn’t going to be cold enough for the snow to stick around, but no… it’s piling up now, especially the lawns.

that’s bad because I had tons of errands to run today. I may have to put it off until tomorrow.

I woke up tired today. Maybe it’s the weather. The low pressure always makes me feel like crap. I sound like some old woman feeling the weather coming, but it’s true. As I got older, I’m more sensitive to the weather, especially my legs feel it faster than any part of my body.

Anyway, I’m so relieved the week is over. The new work was intense in a way with me training. And plus the fact that it was crazy week for them as well didn’t help much. There was a breaking story so people were all tensed up, plus there were works piled up since they were short staffed for a while.

To be honest, I’m in between of how I feel about this job. I’m hoping I will like this job more and be committed to it as time goes by, but I’m not sure.

With my previous job, I was committed and my full focus was on it from the start. I was loyal to the company and did everything to learn about the work inside out. But look where it got me. I ended up getting laid off, even after the corp. said we met the budget and all. So yes, I am now skeptical about everything what the corp. says in general. Like my cousin said to me repeatedly… As soon as I get used to the job within couple of years, I need to venture out and see how much I am worth and change jobs. At first, when I heard him say that (he changes job every 3-4 years as far as i know), I thought he was crazy. I wanted to stay where I was happy and just stick with it. I was like, why fix something that isn’t broken? But now i agree with him. I don’t owe anything to anyone when it comes to work. It’s nothing personal. It’s just business. That’s what I learned from this whole ordeal.

so far so good…

So it’s been three days since I started working. It’s been good so far. There was no time to slack around. They gave me some designing stuff to do pretty much right away, so I was busy on that. But honestly if Quark and the PC wasn’t so slow, I could have finished my stuff A LOT faster.

For the last two days, i left work without seeing the paper closed because there were some breaking stories. But it looks like I will be taking the late shift for at least about a month or so. That’s 12-8pm. I don’t mind so much because it only takes me 20-30 mins to drive home. That’s the awesome part.

Well, there is one thing that’s bugging me a tiny bit. My supervisor have been really nice to me since the start. But at certain level, I feel he’s expecting so much from me which I’m not sure if I can fulfill. I think he wants me to jump into this particular project when there is also two other designers above me. But ultimately, he is the supervisor and he calls the shot. And I seriously hope the two designers doesn’t feel like he’s favoring me. Because I have to work with those two ladies every day and I sit between their desks.

Anyway, tomorrow, I have to go to my web design class in the morning and then run straight to work right after. I will be a mess. And I hear I’m going to get my picture taken at work. great…

first day at work

Today was my first day at work. I went to work around 11am and got out around 8pm. I went to a brief staff meeting, then went to lunch with my supervisor and then went to see the HR. For the rest of the day, I was assigned to design an ad and then shadowed one of the designers to see how the paper is made.

As for flowing the pages, I will be okay as soon as I get the hang of all the style sheets and what goes where and what. It’s just using PC makes me cringe a little bit. They haven’t gotten my info into the system yet. So I had to use other computer. But is it just me or is Quark and PC really freaking slow?

Anyway, when I got home and checked my emails from my mac computer, i sighed in sweet bliss. The whole swift mouse movement and easiness of navigating through folders made me just so happy.

Oh, surprising stuff I learned today. Many staff members came by to introduce themselves to me. And three of them knew some of my old co-workers from legal times. My former web editor used to work at my current work before working for legal times. One of the reporters from legal times is an old grad school friend with a reporter from my current work. Then this girl who used to work for legal times back in the day, she used to intern at my current work. It was so funny and odd. They were like, “do you know tony? do you know joe? bethany?” I was like “yes! how do you know them?”

Anyway, my supervisor is so nice to me. And he’s really easy to talk to. So that’s  awesome.