When I was in Koreatown this past winter, I saw that my dad had a smartphone and started using a popular chatting application called KakaoTalk. I have an account, but don’t really use it, and the app automatically paired us as friends because of our contacts list.

I think the way people use modern internet applications to present themselves can be very telling about a person’s ambitions, thoughts, and simple philosophies. With the recent development of web applications oriented with the self (Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook), the individual is encouraged to encapsulate and condense their ideas into some character limit.

Any thoughtful individual would attempt to write something meaningful- or at least coherent- within that limit. And my dad’s a thoughtful guy- what would he write?

In a rough translation from Korean, he wrote:

“We are all prosperous.”

I asked my stepmother about this, and she laughed to herself, and told me “That’s your father.”

Makes me wonder if optimism is genetic.

Hopefully as these opportunities roll around I’ll be able to start working in a lab that works with walking robots. That would be incredible. It makes all the other stuff that I spend my free time with (minus Joanna) look really shallow. I just can’t wait to get started. I want to make a BigDog! That’s what I want to make. Something that I can kick and it will still walk on, step by step.

What do I have to do to make this come true?! Some one tell me, I want to make robots!! AGH!!

When you’re out here for this long, you begin to forget what good food tastes like. I long for real Korean food, and the other day I had a glimpse of it. Usually Koreana, a local Korean restaurant, makes their kalbi dry and chewy, but this time it was perfect in every way. Came right off the bone. You get about a fourth of what you would get in LA for the same price, but it was incredible. An oasis in this desert…

Maybe I’ll reward myself with some after this week is over. I’m a little afraid to get another of the same dish and have it be mediocre again. Don’t fail me, Koreana…

Joanna thinks it looks gross. Come on, girl! This is the real stuff. Minus the salad. No idea what that’s doing there.

Beef jerky has apple juice in it. No wonder I’m a sucker for it.

Everything’s gonna be okay.

To one day play this on the streets, wherever I am, and put a spring in the step of those who pass by. There’s my passion…

——

In other news, school has been quite the challenge. Gotta move forward and kill the bear!