First of August / Birthday Reflections

I am starting out my second day as a 24-year-old right. I woke up early (considering it's a Sunday -- 8:00 AM!) and fetched the newspaper, went to mailbox and picked up a new special issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, and the final issue ever (for me, that is) of Seventeen magazine. Why on earth am I reading Seventeen magazine when I was seventeen seven years ago? Beats me. I chuck it to my laziness in cancelling the subscription -- these freaks auto-renew themselves with my credit card. Finally, my credit card expiration date had arrived and they couldn't renew unless I gave them a new expiration date! So Ha! I digress again.

So I spent the morning sipping on coffee, reading Cosmo from cover to cover, and then flipping through the newspaper, reading an article on Teresa Heinz Kerry yet again, more on the election, terrorism, Al Qaeda, nothing too drastically exciting. Then I got to my favorite part of the Sunday LA Times -- yep, you guessed it, the coupons. There's something extremely satisfying about clipping coupons. I don't even use half of them. In fact, if I use about 3% of my clippings, that's probably a good thing. Because I don't buy these things -- first of all, I realized that while the Swiffer WetJet™ comes with plenty of coupons in the paper, my Clorox one doesn't have any. Thankfully, I don't mop too frequently I'll just have to be frugal about it.

Well, after spending a good chunk of my morning leisurely reading and slicing and dicing coupons, I got hungry. A full-grown woman of 24 years need more than a coffee for breakfast. So I got up and grabbed a Quaker Oatmeal Breakfast Square. I had my first square last night. It tasted awful. First of all, I am not a fan of oatmeal. We always have the oatmeal with the quaker guy on it at home, and I have it when I'm absolutely dying of hunger and there is not a bite to eat in the house (both instances, are extremely rare, since my mom always stocks the entire kitchen with yummies). But since I am rapidly aging, I wanted to start eating right. That means no consumption of an entire tub of ice cream in one sitting (in my defense, I was opening up space in the freezer), no drinking coffee morning, day, and night, and not eating unconsciously while my eyes are fixated on the telly. I'm not doing some weird, no-carb or South Beach or Zone diet. I'm just simply more interested in eating a bit more veggies, and slightly less ice cream. If I'm lactose intolerant, and I'm consuming more ice cream than I do anything else, there's a problem, obviously.

I had this yesterday: Anyone care to guess what it is? It's a soup made from seaweed. It's a traditional soup that one consumes on his/her birthday. It comes from the fact that this soup is actually the first thing a woman eats after she gives birth -- so to commemorate that exciting event called labor, Koreans have this soup every birthday. In my household, my mom makes this soup for each of my and my brother's birthday, and yesterday was no exception. And this soup, contrary to what it may look (from a non-Korean's p.o.v., it might look like a mirky swamp-colored soup with sea plants in it), is EXTREMELY tasty. Especially since I had the symptoms of a nasty cold! This is like comfort food, at least for me. And the soup, although quite transparent and liquidy, fills you up very well, without much fat! There's left overs, so I'll be having some more for lunch, and possibly dinner (my mom must've been Italian in her past life or something; whenever she cooks, she seems to think that she's cooking for an entire infantry unit, a large family).

You know, birthdays are not all about taking tequila shots off a hot chick's belly button (innie, not an outie, people) and gettind doused with champagne. It's about maturity.

So, to reflect on my concept of the birthday, here it is. I wanted to think about my accomplishments as a 23-year-old, and my shortcomings as a 23-year-old, and how I can do more things like the former and minimalize the latter, as a 24-year-old. I mean, each year you live should be better than your last, right?

I had the great experience of getting my first straight A's (in all 5 classes, thankyouverymuch) since high school. I worked hard, slept very little, but I endured. The semester before that I also had A's, but I dropped the second semester Calculus (makes me shudder thinking about it) and fell under the requirement of taking 12 units, so that's not too good.

In the last two years I have worked at my current job (extremely sedentary work involving me, in a chair, on the phone) I gained 20 lbs. I became overweight and did not get any exercise. Last springish, I lost 13 of those 20 lbs, but I gained a 3 back after school was out (spending more time at work, hence, less motility). I don't intend to look like a supermodel, and I doubt that I could even if I swore off carbs (heinous!). I just want to get rid of this poochy tummy, because for goodness sakes, I'm not a kangaroo. I think going back to school will help exponentially, because 1. I'll be spending less time sitting and sitting and sitting at work. 2. I'll be spending less time at work, stressing and stressing and stressing. 3. I'll be engaged in an educational and entertaining environment with more free time, hence less stress and more motility. 4. My school's parking lot is on the top of a ziggurat-style mountain (you better click on the link if you don't know what a ziggurat is -- and it's not related to Juggernaut), which doubles as a stairmaster. I am going to denounce sedentary life!

Oh, and another thing -- I will be getting a cell phone with a fully functional text message capability -- say no more to the 23-year-old who could not tell the sender of the text message she receives! I think I'm going to like being 24... you know, it could be worse. It could have been 13 going on 30. I mean, how horrible is 30? Oh wait -- I think 29 would be worse, because of the anticipation of turning the big three-oh. Well, I'm just 24 now, so I'll enjoy it while it lasts.