The Meaning of a Kiss

We were in his room. He was lying on the bed and I was sitting on the floor with my back rested against the side. The tension was thick as was the somber melancholy intensified, no doubt, by the darkness of the room.
After what seemed like an eternity I finally spoke up. “Are you excited about tomorrow?” I asked with a near sigh. Upon hearing my voice he sat up. He swung his legs over the bed, narrowly missing my head and dangled them from the side. “Yea,” he replied.
We sat in silence for another minute or so. “And you love her don’t you?” I spoke up again, finally having enough of the deafening lack of sound.
“I do,” he replied. His statement was neither rushed nor paused. There was only the simple truth, which laced his words and it broke my heart to hear him say it. “Hey. Look-,” he started, but before he could finish his thought I sprang up from my sit on the floor and pounced on the bed beside him.
“What is this ‘hey look’?” I rhetorically asked, “You’re supposed to be happy.”
I tried to reassure him, but my heart wasn’t in it. I sighed audibly. “You deserve this. She’s beautiful. She’ll make you happy and I know you’ll make her happy. You’ll have kids and grow old together. It’s everything you could ever want right. So be happier?” Even though I could feel my heartbreaking, I meant every word I said. How was it that I could knowingly push him, someone who was once mine into the arms of other and feel reassured as long as I knew he was happy?
‘You really have it bad’ I told myself. I was preparing to leave when he held the hand that rested on the bed firmly in place. I looked up at him trying to decipher his motives. His gaze was penetrating and pleading at the same time.
“I’m sorry.” It was said so softly that if I wasn’t listening closely enough I would have missed it. I didn’t think it was possible for a heart to break so many times in one night, but yet again I could feel the cracks as if they were laying siege to the heart that beat inside my chest.
“I’m not,” I replied. I was about to leave again but before I knew it that hand that had stopped my first attempt was now resting on my cheek, wiping away tears I didn’t even know I was shedding. Before I knew it the wide gap that had separated us was no longer there and our faces were merely inches apart.
‘Please don’t,’ I thought to myself, ‘I don’t have the strength to refuse you.’ It was a mental plea to him, which went ignored as he began to close the gap. I couldn’t move. I would be lying to myself if I were to say that I didn’t desire his touch, but I knew if it were to continue I’d be the only one to get hurt. “Don’t…” is the only thing I managed to whisper. He paused when our lips were only an inch apart, then disregarding what I had said, captured my lips in his. His kiss was passionate and needy, yet it carried with it apologies and a burning sense of finality. I kissed back with the same sense of passion and need only my kiss carried a selfish sense of hope that this wouldn’t end. I began to remember back to how it all started, back to the many kisses before this last one. A chaste kiss on the cheek from a friend. A brush of the lips, because he’d ‘just felt like it’. To the real first kiss that admitted ‘yes, I do like you’. To the desire filled kiss that screamed ‘I love you’. When did it all stop?
The beginning of the end occurred when she came into the picture. And it isn’t like I could blame her. He didn’t cheat. He’d never cheat. But he did change. The kisses became less frequent, but his soul became more alive. His words might have said ‘I love you’ but his smile, his actions said ‘I’m in love with her.’ And I couldn’t deny it either. They were perfect for each other. Stupid, cruel fate, that had to go and make my guy someone else’s soul mate. Again without noticing I began to cry, which effectively ended the kiss. A kiss that meant what? Did what? Even if it did mean anything, it didn’t matter. It didn’t change anything. In less than twenty-four hours, he’d be married and I’d be alone. If her presence had signified the beginning of the end then the kiss had meant the end of it all.
When he saw that my tears were nowhere near stopping, he pulled me closer and rested my head against his neck. He pulled me up so that we could both rest comfortably on the bed and laid his head down on a pillow. The kiss had meant the end for he, all of the passions and sorrows he had felt for me had been expressed and cleared away in one clean action, but for me it’d brought about a scary revelation: I was still very much in love with him and getting over him would be a long and treacherous road.

When Life Gives You Lemons....

I feel like the saying 'When life gives you lemons make apple juice' is one of the best sayings ever, because it just stands to prove how random and sporadic life is, though I'm not really sure which one I'd go for more Lemonade or Apple Juice. I think a nice cold glass of Sweet Tea would do me just fine. I feel like with that one statement I'm giving away my geographical location, but it's okay. It'd be an absolute shame to hide my Southern roots.

So it looks like the Summer Adventures series thing didn't do so hot. Didn't have much faith in it anyway. Why? Cause it's me. But to bring this here little blog up to speed on my daily happenings I am currently enjoying a two week 'summer vacation' after summer classes before I have to go right back to school for fall semester. I'm trying to enjoy it the best I can, but honestly the prospects of having to start school all over again in a little over a week's time is really scarying me to death. Why? Meh. If I knew the reason maybe it wouldn't scare me so much. It could be alot of things. It's probably the school work though, because I'm ready for all of the extracurricular activities that come with a college life like hanging out with friends on campus, signing up for different clubs, and creating networks that'll help me advance my future. What I'm not ready for are the mindless classes full of international theories that I'll have to take.

I'll be taking five classes in the fall and they go a lil' sumthin like this (<- excuse the clichéd phrase): 1. Politics of the Pacific Rim (Asian Political Studies)- Hoping this is one of my favorite classes since I'm into most things Asia. 2. American Foreign Policy- Yea. Sure. Sounds interesting enough. 3. Fiction Writing- Hoping this'll be my favorite class ever. I love writing and this is the first time I'll get to it willingly for a grade. 4. Global Security- Yea I know I should care more about this topic than I do, but frankly I don't.

5. French 2002- I'm kinda glad this was the last class on the list. If I went to France for a four month period, the same length as this class, I'd be nearly fluent as oppose to only picking up the grammatical 'necessities' in this class. Actually I've been to France once before. Paris. And I think it's an amazing city. Isn't my Paris beautiful?

Taken going up Montmarte Taken from atop the Eiffel Tower

It is, isn't it? I have ambitions of going back, but for now it's school. School and work and friends and life. Fantasies of travel and grandeur can wait til after a have my college degree in hand. When the world wants me just as much as I want it. That's when I'll see France again. And hopefully it's on someone else's dime :)

Summer Adventures: It's Just Hair...Isn't It?

*Yawns* Ah, it's so early in the morning and I'm up and at work, but before I start trudging along about the woes and wonders of today, I'm going to hit the reward button really quick and talk about the week that just pasted. And boy what a week it was! I believe the place I left off in the last part was 'blue hair and a change in scenery'. I think I even called it The Augusta Chronicles or something like that, but before I dive into the amazing week I had at my sister's, I want to section off the blue hair part into it's own post. Great! Sounds perfect, I'll start from there.

So the blue hair comment is in reference to me getting blue tracks put in my hair. Yes, that's right. Tracks (the easiest way for a black woman to change her hair, without changing her hair). I used to not be a fan of weave, extensions, fake hair, any of it. For the most part I'm still not. For example, I don't believe in weave for the sake of lengthening ones hair. Maybe it's just me, but I think black women can obtain long hair if they just take care of the stuff they have, but then again who am I to judge? To each her own. But what I absolutely hate is when women have weave in their hair that's obviously weave (i.e. the tracks are showing, it's the wrong color, the hair is cheap quality). If you're gonna do it, at least do it right and have it looking nice.

The reason I decided to embark on the weave journey is to test out different colors in my hair. I feel like I have this punk, rock, just-wanna-wear-my-chucks, Hot Topic style that's not displayed by my outer appearance. Everything else could be on point. I'd have my Tokio Hotel band tee, dark jeans with the double wide black belt and beckle holes going all the way around it, my classic blacks, jewelry (my chainmail bracelet and my favorite silver necklace from the anime NANA), black nail polish (feeding the stereotype), and what would be, could be, should be, the quench hitter, the deal breaker, the style to end all- maybe a pink, blue, or purple streak right in the front where my hair swoops to the side- is a freaking kill joy, because it's not there.

And there's a good reason it's not there. Getting color in my hair would be a process. A painstaking process. It's not as easy as grabbing some bleach and semi-permanent dye from Spencer's and getting my roommate to apply everything. To do this would include a trip to the beauty salon, continuous usage of a certain shampoo and conditioner (pH level can't be too high), and daily application of moisturizer and oil. Unfortunately the process isn't as easy as it is for my Caucasian counterparts. For a long time I resented that too. Didn't want to believe it even, because like I said I'm not a big fan of the methods black women have to use to change their hair, but I wanted the color. And if I wanted the color I was gonna have to do a little accepting and compromising. In the end it turned out okay. The style was a little more classier than I wanted, if you can even consider having blue hair classy. Anyway the color was kind of dark so it wasn't that noticable. Not unless I was in bright light, or the person looking was in my face like 'Hey! How ya doing?'. Would I get colored tracks again? Maybe. Am I ready to dye my own hair? Not at all. But one day. It's just a matter of building up the courage to do it and having the discpline to maintain it.


Oh yeah(This is kind of like the p.s. of the post)- I wanted to write about it, but didn't know where to put it. I bought the hair from C.C. Beauty and Beyond beauty supply store after Taylor (the little sister) and I came from church. The store is run and owned by Asians (i think they were Korean ^_^). Actually most hair care and beauty supply stores that cater to black women are owned by Asians. In Chris Rocks's movie Good Hair (amazing movie, recommend it to anyone) I think the statistics were as such: 20% of the Black hair care retail industry is owned by Blacks. 75-80%( basically everything else) is owned by Asians- Chinese and Korean. Now why do you think that is?

Summer Adventures: The Beginning

RAWR! Ok now that that's out of my system, to begin!! Honestly speaking I don't exactly know how "adventurous" my summer will be. The only things I have planned for it are work and school. But I did make a New Year's Resolution to see everything that happens in life as an adventure, so in keeping true to that now my Summer Adventures series begins.

School officially ended for me on May 6 around 3:40, but because I still had so much to do- bite my nails until grades came in, work, take one friend home on Friday, and another friend to the airport Saturday morning- I don't consider officially having started my break until Saturday when I was finally able to crawl into my bed and collapse without a care in the world. Yea right! I don't even think I went to sleep when I got back. Too much stuff to do. Too many places to go, so in all honesty even if it didn't feel like break just yet, it really did start May 6 at 3:40 after my last final.

But those things to do and places to go- not exaggerations. The following Sunday was Mother's Day and the day after was my father's birthday. Yea, busy right? So in celebration of both events I took my family, yes I meaning funded by me, to visit the New World of Coke building. It was pretty cool to say the least. I didn't bring a camera so no fantastic memories of the inside. Just a $27 memorial picture and a free bottle of most likely flattened coke to set it apart from dreaming. That and the $60 debt that shows up on my statement every time I bank online. *sniff* I hardly knew ye :'( , but I disgress.


My favorite parts had to be the 4-D movie and the tasting room, but mostly the tasting room. Now I'm not much of a soda drinker, actually I don't drink soda at all, but for this occasion I broke my ban and cheated....alot. With coke beverages from all around the world I cheated. And when we got to the coke classic flavors like regular, cherry, diet, lime, and vanilla I almost died. If I had any weakness for coke beverages, or soda in general, it'd have to be Vanilla Coke. People think I'm weird, but it's just that good to me. With every other flavor it was a taste here, a sip there, but believe me when I say that my little plastic cup was brimming with Vanilla Coke. My little sister got on me so bad for it. She said right to my face, "That's not right. You're cheating more than cheating." She's a non-soda drinker too. I'd like to think I had something to do with that myself. It doesn't matter anyway I ended up having to throw the Vanilla Coke away. It had to be consumed in the taste room and my stomach nor my throat could handle me wolfing down a carbonated drink like all sense was lost to me.

In the end my family and I left the World of Coke happy people. My dad was smiling so that had to be a good thing. We were all together and no one had gotten chewed out....yet. We ended our little family day in Atlanta with one extremely greasy, extra unhealthy, yet very delicious meal. Yep that's right. We went to the Varsity ;) . One of Atlanta's classics. And that about wrapped it up for our World of Coke Mother's Day/birthday celebration. My dad took off work for his actual birthday, but I don't think much happened. Then again I wasn't there the majority of the time. To explain the reasons why would lead into an entirely different adventure including blue hair and a change of scenery. That'll have to wait until next time, so don't be a stranger. Summer Adventures: Augusta Chronicles, coming soon!

Change is......Changes on the Way

To make a dramatically long story short I have decided to create a completely new blog to harbour my Korean enthusiasm. And so here at "My Say" this is the last time you will see an entry that is Korean related. Actually because this is such an emotional time with goodbye's to old and hello's to new, and because I haven't posted in forever I'll make this entry a mixed blog. No need for me to announce it right. I'm so all over the place in my blogs that they tend to be mixed entries anyway, right? Well to try and combat my scatterbrainedness I'll create an outline, yes an outline for this entry to try and move it along for you all. Don't believe me?

Blog Outline (<- so serious)

1. The Weather
2. My Friends
3. New Blog

This should be easy enough to follow. Hopefully with an outline my writing will be less sporadic for you all. Fingers crossed :3

1. I've been meaning to talk about this topic for the longest time. I even started a blog entry, but was so distracted by the weather, or disinterested in writing at the time, that the entry never made it to fruition. Okay so I live in the Southeastern part of the United States, right along the Bible Belt there and our weather has been going crazy. It snows one day, its hot the next. Even poor Florida within the Miami area experienced lows of 50 degrees just recently. Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina have all been hit by at least three disconnected snowdays, which have closed roads, schools, caused wrecks and panic. I'm telling you the South just isn't meant for this weather. This coupled with the earthquakes that hit Haiti and Chile have my boss convinced that we are living in the End Days. I know as a Christian I'm suppose to pray for the end to come and all that, but I'm kinda hoping it holds off until after 2012 to prove all of those people wrong who believe the world's gonna end in Decemeber four years from now just because the Mayan Long Count Calendar stops. As for Apocalyptic literature I really can't say much.

2. Alright. On to my friends. This is the part of the blog where it becomes K-Ent related. If I have not stressed enough for you that my friends are absolutely crazy and are ultimately the reason I am so Korean obsessed now, hopefully this will solidify your opinion of them. Like a said above I'm Christian and right now Christians are going through a period called Lent (the 40 days that Jesus fasted in the desert before his death). Well Christians are also called to fast for those 40 days. You don't have to, but its encouraged. Most people give up chocolates or sweets. I decided to break my Lent season up into a three part fast. The first part of my fast was no Korean Entertain (k-music, dramas, pictures, nothing), second was a liquid cleasning water only diet (which I'm currently doing), and the last would be a no meat diet. My water diet just started today, which means that as of twelve o'clock this morning my K-Ent fast was officially over. Now in my opinion the fast wasn't that bad. It was only for two weeks and my productivity levels went up a bit, because I wasn't constantly watching videos. It wasn't that bad for me, but -and this is the part were I really found out how connected the world is - to my two equally obsessed, (?)......addicted (?)......whatever, friends it was torture. Even my little sister wasn't too happy with me in the beginning. She's finally managed to tell all of the 2PM members apart and she counldn't even show the only person who'd be ecstatic about her accomplishment, because I was fasting.

And if you think I'm overexggerating about how much my fasting decision effected my friends allow me to recall the events that happened at 12:05 last night/this morning. Sometime during a conversation with my roommate D, I mentioned that my K-Ent fast was officially over at twelve. She quipped at me saying that she knew where I'd be at twelve and I replied to her saying that I'd probably be asleep, because I had been passing out early for the last few days. Rika (a.k.a Gustav. I'll be calling her Rika from now on, maybe Gustav here and there) overheard what I had said and seriously disagreed, telling me that if I was asleep at twelve she'd come in my room and wake me up just to show me a Korean related picture her and Sheeta (the other crazy one) had been dying over for the past fifteen minutes. At 11:47 I went to take a 20 minute nap/break from studying. I told D to wake me up when 20 minutes was over (in the end there would be no need -_-) At 12:05 there was knocking at my door. Two random, crazy, possessed girls were standing in the door way. I rolled over to ignore them, my lights came on and everything became a blur after that (literally cuz my eyes weren't adjusted). The things I remember most though, were: a white board being thrusted into my face, rolling over, my alarm clock going off, an apple being shoved into my hand (by a random D, who walked in and right back out), covers being pulled away, and Cheshire cat grins from the two Korean fanatics standing over me. What an interesting way to break a fast. I may still be lacking in my up to date Korean knowledge, but with friends like mine I'm sure I'll catch up.

3. And last, but not least (<- yes cliched. no daggers please), what's the deal with this new blog? Good question. I'm not gonna take up too much of your time here. Don't want this blog post becoming offensively long, but basically I'm creating a new blog. It's up already actually. Feel free to take a peek. You can get to it be going to the right out there a click "View Profile". Scroll down and click "Korean Wave Anyone?" and you could just click on the title of the blog. Whichevers easiest ;)

Until when, my dears.

This is Why!!

So right about now I should be doing homework, or studying for that french test I have at two, but I just got inspired to write a list and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share it. The title of this list is........(<- dramatic effect) "Five Reasons Why I Love Korean Music and Why You Should Too". My friend's also working on a similar project. You all should remember her from my previous entry about the Korean Wave, Gustav :), well she's doing a powerpoint on the Korean Wave. I know right!? With pictures and everything. Needless to say I'm no where near as creative as she is and I definitely don't have the patience to sit there and create a powerpoint describing all the reason why I think Korean Entertainment is so awesome. That'd take too long :) . So anyway, I marveled at her powerpoint, even ooed and awed in the right places, but I never considered creating anything like it myself, not even a list. I guess my trail of thinking went like this: "I like Korean Entertainment, because I like it. If you can't see why I like it to maybe get into it yourself then, HA, your loss." However, just awhile ago I was listening to Yesung of Super Junior's solo song for the Tazza OST (Official Soundtrack), and I literally thought to myself "GAWD! This is why I love Korean music." After a little more thought I realized that, despite how utterly angelic Yesung's voice may sound, it's only one of the reasons why I'm currently in love with.......(okay let me side step for a minute. I hate using the term K-pop, cause I think it should only be constricted to pop music even though nowadays Korean music and K-pop are basically synonyms. I really don't care what other people do, but as for me, I'll use the abbreivation K-music whenever I want to talk about all Korean music in general. I'll agree that K-pop sounds cooler, but it feels so weird calling an F.T. Island ballad or a TRAX rock song K-POP)......in love with K-music.

With that said, I think I've chit-chatted enough. On to the list ->

"Five Reasons Why I Love Korean Music and Why You Should Too"

1) The Boybands: And this is a fully incoporating statement meaning boybands, real bands that are all boys, bands whose members are too old to be called boys anymore. They all fit. This includes everyone from Super Junior (with their vast majority of 24+ year old members) to F.T. Island (with their non-existent dance skillz, but its ok cause they're a band band) to SHINee (with their young, cute, adorable, dance machinyness) to Big Bang (with their Hip Hop swagga) to DBSK (who's name just says to all).

2) Killer/Angelic Vocals: And there are ranging vocals for everyone's taste. I'm a Yesung fangirl when it comes to his angelic voice belting ways. My friend is totally into Kyuhyun's smooth like chocolate, but powerful when need be vocals. Other honorable mentions that should grace this category are SHINee's Jonghyun; DBSK's Jaejoong, Changmin, and Xiah; and F.T. Island's Hongki. Now all the boyband members can sing....to a certain extent. These are just the guys that I know of who I think can blow.

3) Killer/Angelic Appearance: This category makes me laugh, because it tends to be the reason why I'm so bias when it comes to boyband vs girlband music. And yes this means how they look, not what they're wearing. That'll come later. Alot of the guys in the Korean Music Industry are not hard to look at, at all. Some are hot, others are sexy, alot are cute, a few are glorious (yes, i said glorious), then you have the ones that are different combinations of the four. It's funny too cause they can literally change in a blink of the eye. I would give you people to ponder, but this is seriously a preference thing. Just check out all the bands from number one and you'll start to see.

4) Dance moves like what: This can go for the guys and girls, though I still think the girls get out ranked. Their dances can be cute, but alot of times they overly try to look sexy or cute by doing extra stuff or not enough, when the guys can just ooze a certain feeling from their performance. Even still I'll give you a mixture of recommedations. Dances to look out for: SHINee's Ring Ding Dong, Love Like Oxygen, and Replay; Super Junior's Sorry Sorry and Suju-M's Super Girl; DBSK's Mirotic and Wrong Number; SNSD's Gee and Tell Me Your Wish (Genie); G-Dragon's Heartbreaker; Wonder Girl's Tell Me and Nobody; 2PM's Heartbeat; and T-ara's Bo Peep. People to look for: Eunhyuk, Taeyang, Taemin, BoA, and Rain.

5) The Fashion: It's sensible to say that people are attracted to people who look good, both in appearance and attire. Some of the Korean music artists have become so iconic in their awesome fashion sense that they've started wave like trends. Most noteable would be SHINee and the SHINee Trend, which includes, but is not limited to graphic tees, skinny jeans, and high-top shoes. Some other fashionistas would be Big Bang's TOP and G-Dragon. Alot of the girls have nice fashion sense too. Can't think of any in particular, but what seems to be in are the two sizes too big sweaters with skinny jeans and high heels.

I'm starting to see a pattern with this skinny jeans thing. Maybe I better go out and get me another pair. Anyways, that's all I've got for you today. Maybe next time I'll do a Top 10 list and do Korean Entertainment as a whole. I feel like all that would be added are the dramas, but if I think about the variety shows and what not, I'm sure I can come up with something. There's love in my heart for you mon cheri cyberworld. Until the next.

My future....decided?

There's this saying that goes "Don't worry about future problems until you come face to face with them". It says that because if you worry about the problem ahead of time and there turns out to be no problem at all, you've worried for nothing. The other part says that if you worry about it now and there turns out to be a problem then you've just worried about the same problem twice. I really like that saying, but I'm starting to doubt its accuracy.

I'm 19 now, almost 20, so hopefully I have a lot more living to do, but I can't help thinking that parts if my future won't be as rosy colored as I envisioned them to be. I'm a bit of a daydreamer, you see, and I'm terribly old-fashioned. I grew up in a house with two loving parents and a younger sister who annoyed the heck out of me, but who looked up to her big sister as if I were some sort of saint. I never had any dreams of ultimate success like six or seven figure paychecks and multibillion dollar houses. To me, where I was then was right were I wanted to end up in my own life. My parents looked happy. Sure they weren't perfect. Parts of their relationship were just as damaged as any other, but they were happy and they still are, even more so, I think, now that I'm out of the house. I was comfortable back then. I'm still comfortable today. Comfort was the ultimate goal I saw for myself as I looked into my future. I won't lie. I was consumed with the white pecket fence dream. In my future I saw a three story house, two cars, a dog named Chester and not two, but five kids all with some part of their name starting with the letter D.

It was a beautiful dream, but now........now it seems like the older I get the more that dream is starting to slip away, kind of like trying to hold on to water. For my future now I see uncertainty and adventure. I want to go to law school after I finish my ungraduate degree. I want to study International Law so that I can one day go work for an intergovernmental organization (IGO) or a non-governmental organization (NGO) that concerns itself with international non-profit work. I think my true goal is an IGO, so I'll work hard to reach it. Before that, though, I want to go to Japan and teach for a year through the JET program and after that maybe South Korea too. I want to study in China for two or three years so that I can really immerse myself in the Mandarin language. And of course I'd love to go to France too. I'm not sure what I'd do there, but I couldn't have my five years of learning french go to waste. That'd be nearly impossible for me.

A life of adventure sounds fastinating, right? It would for me too, if I didn't see me going through it alone. Of course there's family and friends, but when you can't see a significant other in it or any little babes screaming "mom" things start to get a little dreary. Of course married life isn't for everyone. My mom's best friend is an amazing woman. She's got a Masters in Public Administration, a teaching cerificate, and a law degree, not to mention she loves the Lord like no other, but has never been married or had any kids. She's spent her entire life as a caregiver putting others before herself and that's what made her happy, at least I hope she's happy. If anything, she'll never run out of joy.

That life may be perfect for her, but it's something that I've never seem for myself, so finally seeming it now scares me a little. I just hope that sometime down the rode when everything thing is said and done and I look back on my life, that I won't be disappointed. I feel like crying for my future self right now, because I never want to get to a point in my life where it's too late to cry. And so what if I worry now and there turns out to not be a problem? Won't that make my heart lighter knowing there was nothing to worry about instead of having it unguarded to a problem if there actually is one. These are the things that I think about sometimes. I hope I haven't depressed you mon cheri cyberworld. A bientot.