I have finally tamed the fury of the flu. I am still coughing, and I can't proclaim to be triumphant as confidently as I wish, but it has been subdued. The cough I have is minimal -- I expect it to completely withdraw by Monday. So to those of you who had been speculating -- that I have SARS, or worse, the Mad Cow disease (B.S.E.) -- let me be clear: I am clearly on the road to recovery!

I even went out yesterday, had dinner at CPK, and went to Mr. Coffee's for some coffee. My best friend and I chatted away late into the night, past midnight. It was fun -- it had been long since I had been to the outside world other than to and from work. We talked about profound stuff. We usually do, when we're sitting with a cup of java in a dimly lit cafe. Our topics covered New Year's resolutions, our history as friends, our futures as individuals, and as friends, men, and other random stuff. It was fun, but at the same time, made me introspective.

The single girl's life is a long and lone road, but the number of those taking this path has increased significantly -- including myself, and my newly singled best friend. I haven't ruled out all men for the rest of my life, but I did decide that when I do seek out a partner with whom to share my life, it will not be a flighty decision. I want to be with someone intellectual -- well-educated. Someone who has graduated from college, who has a career that he enjoys. Someone who reads the paper... to be cont.

Second day of the year 2004 -- I am still under the weather, and still at work, as always. The ends/beginnings of the months are the hardest time for my job. It is the most busiest days, so I have to be here. I'm done with most of the paperwork I have to do -- I'm just procrastinating for the last bit. I'm just glad the bulk of the holiday season has passed, and hopefully things will settle down to normal. I normally clean and organize my life before the New Year, so I can start feeling renewed for the next year, but this year I was sick, and caused more chaos and mess. I can tell you that there has been a surge in the amount of entropy in my life recently.

It seems that everyone is out and about, in the outside world, as well as in "blogosphere." I haven't had much time at all to leave comments on other blogs, much less visit them at all. But I am still thankful for the number of visitation I have been getting. Thank you everyone.

Let me tell you, I have being sick. I'm sure everyone of you do too. The fever and headache and clogged sinuses are gone, but the cough remains. Cough violently torments my entire torso into an uproar. It has also kept me from keeping food down a few times, but that, too, has been getting a little better. Thank goodness.

I checked my 2004 fortunes at Baramdosa.com which is a Korean fortune telliing site. Basically, I have horrible luck for the next 12 months, ranging from various illnesses, betrayal by close friends, to loss of wealth (or whatever I have), and little things like "no matter how hard you try, you will not see positive results" and similar. Generally speaking it will be a very regretful and saddening year for me, supposedly. Eh.

In Eastern cultures (many of them, not all), there is a serious emphasis on the importance of your name. The way it sounds, the number of syllables, the number of strokes in its written form, its meaning, and etc.. No one bothered to name me when I was a born (being the last in the series of girls to be born into the extended family on my father's side), my mother took the liberty of naming me. However, it turns out that my name isn't too great, and since two years ago, I have contemplated changing my name! I don't believe in these mythological things all that much, but hey, if it's bad, why not avoid it, right? It's bad to walk under the ladder or step on a crack. While you wouldn't avoid these things at all costs (normally) you would stay away if easily done, right? Well, changing a name isn't much, and it also gave me an excuse to find something new and changed about myself. But I haven't found a name suitable for moi, and so it is still Haemi.

Even in the U.S. there are people who make names for a living. They match you with your birthdate and hour and all things about you to give you a name that will yield most luck for you. They usually do this for babies. One of my friends had a baby last year, and her parents-in-law went and got a baby name without her consent. She didn't like the name, and calls the baby something else. So what's in a name? Quite a lot.

I hope that Baramdosa is wrong and that I will have plenty of blessings in the New Year.... because 2003 reeked! (to say the least)

I don't know how to place links for individual posts. But click here and scroll to the post dated February 4th, 2003 for reference.

"E" used to work at my store for about a month or so, until he mysteriously disappeared. He finally reappeared at a local Cingular store, with whom we do much business. I can't believe that he had the audacity to show up at such a place. He's a strange strange and confused boy. But that's about it.

I'm not feeling well at all. I thought I'd be dead by New Years, but here I am, still blogging. Y a y. It's the miracle for which I had hoped. I was wretching and throwing up as I heard fireworks and people cheering in the neighboring areas. Talk about ringing in the New Years celebration. And the vomiting was not induced by heavy drinking! I wasn't able to eat a thing yesterday other than some strange tasting pho for lunch. I just had a few slurps of the noodle. I had nothing afterwards until near 11PM, when my stomach was turning and I felt that it was because my stomach had been so empty for an extended period of time. I needed to take some Dayquil, but I knew I shouldn't take stuff like that on an empty stomach. I didn't feel like eating, but did crave something sweet and juicy, easy to swallow, so I cut myself a small-sized apple and ate about three-quarters of the thing, when I started to feel nauseated. I quickly swallowed the two soft-gel pills of Dayquil (shiny orangy beads they are!) and went to bed, hoping that sleep would send every nasty feeling I had, away. Well, I couldn't keep it down. I spent an hour or two coughing before I finally fell asleep. I woke up feeliing very thirsty and hungry, and had some fish sticks for breakfast. Yummy, huh? My mother's up now and we're going to have ¶±±¹. (dduk-gook -- it's a Korean soup that is traditionally eaten on New Year's breakfast. Consists of a hot soup with little clumps made from rice and flour -- what is commonly called rice cakes, but it's not sweet. There's many kinds. It's hard to explain, as many ethnic stuff are.) I can feel the yummy yummy hot soup trickling down my throat, sloooooowly bringing the flu virus to its knees and killing it for good.

I am as sick as a person could be. Complete with coughing, phlegm, head ache, runny/stuffed nose, fever, etc.. The temperature went down slightly just a few minutes ago -- I was buried under massive amounts of blankets and was still shivering. The important thing is to recuperate and be able to work tomorrow.

You know.. I should really change the little blurb on the left to...

Hi. Welcome to my blog, as I describe every gruesome detail on my progress toward death.

My friend jokingly said that I probably have SARS and should not come near him... Yes, what started out to be just your usual severe vomiting and diarrhea has finally evolved into grave coughing and muscle aches. I think the worst has come -- this season's notorious flu (the one for which they ran out of vaccines, the one that killed several children) has finally settled in. Full-fledged! Just when I thought I was spared!

I actually didn't feel so bad this morning, and thought that I was finally recovering. I coughed a little, but disregarded it as something trivial. Boy, was I wrong. By sunset, I was coughing like I was trying out for the coughing record for the Guiness Book of Records! I still am. In a matter of minutes, I will consume two soft gels of Vicks Dayquil (I don't have Nyquil, which is more appropriate, seeing as this is night, and being a poor starving student, money doesn't come easily enough to afford both daytime and nighttime medicines!) and clasp my hands together and hope earnestly that it works.

I have to attend church tomorrow morning -- I promised my best friend. I would argue that I am deathly ill and cannot go to a place of worship that has nothing to do with me as I have forsaken god just as he has me, but I often lose arguments with my best friend. If I make the futile attempts at argument (not an altercation, mind you, just a little discussion among two very dear friends), we usually end up in some massive fight where we don't speak to each other for a couple of days. Seeing that she is only here for 3 weeks, a fight of such length would be inappropriate. So I sigh and resign to attending the bloody gore that is church. The most bothersome part of it is that it takes place on Sunday, and of all hours, in the AM! It's waaaaaaaay too early (forgive me for my lack of adjectives) to clap and sing and pretend to pray. With my frank personality, I wouldn't be surprised to find myself not standing when asked, and not closing my eyes during prayers, but just blatantly showing disrespect for the Christian all-mighty in his territory would make me fear getting hit by lightning when I leave the area. Although he isn't quite like Zeus -- I'm not quite sure about the lightning, but I'm sure he has his ways to take vengence -- as though I were the next anti-christ!

Long story short (I know... it's too late) I will be prim and proper and coughing like mad at church tomorrow morning. If I don't update my blog in the next couple of days, just accept the fact that the savage church-goers (come on -- having to get up on a Sunday morning? I'm sure everyone would be on their most savage behaviour!) have thrown me into the midst of hell, where I will live in a blog-less eternal world. Burning wouldn't be so bad, seeing as I'm freezing off my arse as we speak. Or write.