Christmas

I wrote this Christmas letter for my family and it's a pretty good recap of my year. Merry Christmas.

2012 shall forever been known as the year of change, understanding, and self discovery for the Kim's. Every year it seems like we look back and say "What a crazy year" but holy Regis Philban, this has been a year. Usually this is the time to brag and state random facts about each member of the family, but really how many of you care about my high school schedule? So the plan for this letter is to share with you our experiences so that you can learn from them as we have.

Overall the year had been going smooth I had finished my sophomore year and was on to summer swim team. Nothing major happened because we are the Kim's and wild stories tend to evade us. Everyday I woke up, went to swim practice, came home waited for my parents to walk in the door after work. Now it's funny because most of you probably didn't even take notice of the fact that my parents both walked in the door. The reason you did not notice is because a simple detail such as walking is usually forgotten about. We tend to overlook the routine, we come to expect it.

Lesson number one : appreciate the routine, the ability to walk and to be alive is a gift and should not be forgotten about.

Everyday was routine, swim team was coming to an end and league finals were the last event of the season. The first day of finals my mom and I loaded up the car and drove to Winfield. I swam my first two events and was sitting in the tent waiting for my last event of the day. If at this moment my mom decided to go put our things in the car, or if she decided to go get something to eat, or checked twitter for a minute out stories would be different, we would be different people our Christmas card would probably mention our dogs successful eating habits. But that's not how our stories goes anymore. That day I witnessed my mother get crushed by a tree, I didn't know if she was alive actually I was almost are she wasn't. All I knew was that my mom was there and then she was gone, and I missed everything she did. I missed her habitual worry, and questioning, I missed everything good and aggravating about my mom.

Lesson number 2 : you never know that you will live to see the end if the day, or live to see those you love. Cherish everything and every second you have with the people in your life, and tell those you love that you love them every chance you get.

Next thing I knew we were in the hospital, The Paula was in surgery, and I was in a room full of family and family that's not blood related (I think they're called friends?)

Lesson number three: friendships are what get you through the hard times. Appreciate them and be there for them whenever you can.

Next we learned how severe The Paula's injuries were and began to see the long road to recovery. After days in the hospital and a surgery or two we moved to a rehab hospital where The Paula learned how to get into a car, and use a wheel chair. But 5 months since here we are. The Paula has gone through a wheel chair, crutches, a cane, and now has even ventured out with no assistance except my dad's hand. And we are almost back to normal.

Life is crazy and impossible without love. I couldn't imagine making it through this year without the love from our friends and family, the love from all of you. This year has been a crazy one so take a second to breath and appreciate everyone and everything in your life.

Live from New York
Meow and out

- Justin

Compulsion

I have this compulsion to write right now (<---- write right lulz) I feel like if I don't say something I will be forgotten. I feel like the world is passing me by and usually that would be ok except I am no longer helping others, or pushing myself to learn from my own life. All I want from my life is for someone to hear what I have to say, I want to help but I feel like my words are meaningless.

My friend is hurting and I don't know how to help. I can only offer bumper sticker advice and then crack a joke. I feel like something is wrong with me, why can't I help? Why does it feel like I know what to say but I can't? I'm sorry that half of what I think, I can't get out of my head. Maybe one day I will, but as of now I feel like a mute.

So that's why I am writing, I don't really have a message or challenge, I just want to write so I can be heard and possibly help. I need a purpose or drive. I need a reason to experience things otherwise I'm just here and I might as well not exist.

So scream from the rooftops don't be forgotten because you have something to say. Do not be passed by, because you see things no one else can see. Yell, write, paint, be heard, or more accurately be felt.

Maybe I did have a challenge,

------Make a difference------


More to come

J€ Keem

Free?

Slaves to ourselves. That's what we are slaves to the standards set by us and for us. For instance right now I'm trying to figure out my life, and by life I mean senior schedule and college plans ( it's funny how true/untrue that is ) and I came to the realization that I don't have to take Calc(HELL)ulus if I don't want to. Or actually anymore soul sucking math EVER... In my whole life.... And it makes me itchily happy.

My life doesn't have to revolve around what classes I take, or the job I get, I can do whatever I want. It's funny because we feel indebted to our society, as if since we were born alongside all these other people, we owe it to them to take Calculus, or to be successful, or be great. Yes it would be awesome if in someway you helped those around you, but if you lose yourself in the process did you REALLY help anyone?

It's like we woke up in this strange place and were pushed into these itchy clothes and backpacks and classes. I DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR THIS. I don't recall deciding that this is what I wanted for my life, but here I am sitting in an A.P. European History class corrupting my brain with monotony. I should be out becoming a person not becoming a number.

Right now at this time in my life all I want to be is a bird or maybe a cloud, I want to sit on the floor or the roof of my car and just exist. I want to introvert and discover what and who I am and I want to grow and become better. I'm a child with a name trying to act like an adult with an entire personality and put together life when really I don't know who I am or who I want to be.

I saw this poster that said "Repeat after me: I am free"

I am free to buy name brand clothes, I am free to act like everyone else, I am free to drive myself to my own prison cell to work for 7 hours, I am free to then drive myself home and continue to work on said prison work for the next 4 hours, I am free to get a job, I am free to get a nice house with a grand piano I can't even play. Freedom????? Yes.

If when you do something you feel yourself die a little, my advice would be to Stop. Find what makes you happy and what makes you a better person, learn something new at school or at work and call that a success. You are more than a number you are incredible and you have a voice that no one else has. Don't ever lose yourself in the crowd always be you because no one else can.

I think I kind of like you (girlish giggle)

- Juan Keem

Here's a picture of a cat, shaved to look like a lion.

Floor

I sat on the floor today. Whilst eating lunch because someone took my cookie. That was the best part of my day, sitting on the floor under the tables. And I realized that sometimes I like to be by myself which is usually not me. I'm loud and opinionated and I use my hands ridiculously when I talk, thinking about it I believe all of those things are due in part to my childlike size. But that aside I'm loud and usually I'm comfortable being in the middle of conversation.

But I found out that sometimes I like to eat by myself and just enjoy the quiet, which is not old me at all. And then I realized that an important part of understanding yourself and the world around you is to get a new perspective (sometimes surrounded by feet). Mrs. Gregory, the art teacher at my school always tells us to stand on our chairs, step back, close an eye to see what you've done from a different view and decide if you like what you see.

We get so caught up in whatever is the loudest or the brightest, we forget to take a second and just be. In my house I get in trouble for laying on the floor for hours at a time, mostly because it looks like I'm not doing anything, which sometimes I'm not. But three times out of five I'm laying and thinking, and being, just being. It's great to be, not to be a student, or a class president, or anything with a title, but just to be.

This whole trip idea I created because I needed something to look forward to, I need adventure and some passion and I need to get away. I need some time to sit and be, free of distractions and responsibilities. I've already learned so much just writing down these ideas that run through my head and I can't imagine how much I will change and learn because of operation Michele Lasercat Obama (trip name isn't final) I've already learned from operation Michelle Lasercat Obama and it's still three years away.

To say the least I'm really excited about the future and in excited about my new perspective on life and I'm excited to see myself change. And if by chance you're out there reading this, I hope you can ascertain (<--- word I know) something from my life and experiences. And I'm really excited that I have you to write to with all of my grammatical errors and I'm glad I get to share my life with you.

Sit on the floor. Eat some good food. Learn something new. Be happy.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight.

-Lasercat D.d.s.

Quantify

I've found it. I've found the/a fundamental flaw of society today. We are stuck in this frantic competition trying to meet the cookie cutter perfect score polo and Saturday croquet life. We are born originals and spend our lives trying to become average.

Have you noticed that everything that "matters" in life has a number, grade point average, weight, salary, square footage, height, test score we're trying to classify perfection rather than experiencing perfection. We live in a society where a person's numbers matters more than a person's potential. We've taken out personal interaction and replaced it with reports and numbers and facts and figures and robotic bull.

Education today is a perfect example. We've taken the beautiful exchange of knowledge from one person to another and made it a disgusting competition. Why can't I go to school learn something I didn't know and call it a success? Because that's not what life is about Justin, life is finding adequacy from others rather than finding satisfaction in yourself.

Have you ever noticed how ridiculous high ranking military uniforms are? It is a man/women in a costume that is supposed to tell everyone around them that they are above them. If they are really that impressive, shouldn't I be able to tell without the neon sign of ribbons and ropes? We don't need these classifications, greatness should be felt not seen or heard (This thought ends abruptly no apologies)

Challenge time, since I guess that's what we're doing here.
- Live a life that you find successful, ignore the urge to quantify yourself and just be your own success.-

Catz rule Babies Droool

- Juan

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

On a different note, the trip that was mentioned in the first post has been the inspiration for all of the realizations I've come across, this blog is the manifestation from my everyday life of the soon to be trip that I'm going to take.

Also that dweeb in the picture is my best friend Liam who's going on the foretold trip. I SWEAR I HAVE FRIENDS.... believe me

- J dolla

Micha and the Universe

So there is this really wise awesome shaman like Michigonian (as in one who originates from Michigan) girl that moved to my school this year named Micha. And from the first day of school we've been able to have these really loud aggressive conversations about society and sometimes about colors and trees and cats (DeEP stUfF). Yesterday we were supposed to be writing a paper in English using all kinds of crazy sources and numbers and creativity sucking MLA format, so whilst everyone else worked on their drone papers, Micha and I were listening to alternative music and yelling ideas at each other with our awesome teacher (shout out to Swifty Swift).

My favorite part of the conversation was when she told me about a "pep" talk she gave someone one time. It went something like (loose paraphrase), "Whenever you're feeling sad, just remember that here you are a complex roadmap of veins and arteries, with capillaries doing whatever the hell they do, and yet you still have time to have a favorite color. You. Are. Awesome.". (You could say she's the bee's knees or something)

It's so unbelievably true. Right now I'm squatting in my bed thinking and making my fingers move on this tiny iPhone keyboard all the while my liver is filtering, my brain is shooting electricity, I'm breathing, I am replicating cells, electrons are flying around everywhere, my hair is growing.

And I'm alive and I'm not even trying. We. Are. Awesome.

Just take a second to breath and soak up how VAST AND INCREDIBLE this whole thing is... .... . .. ..... You're on a tiny rock hurtling around a flaming ball of gas and you have a favorite color. How is it even possible?

The challenge or me is to no longer accept anything as mundane or ordinary, to wake up every morning and in every second afterword bathe in the complexity of how fantastic and impossible everything is. Ordinary is dead everything is new and more beautiful everyday.

From an old African proverb Yo a Lo which means "you only live once" make it count.

Yours TrUuuuLy

- Lasercat D.D.S.

Interactions

Why are we here? What are we supposed to learn from this whole thing? Everything. We're here to learn as much as we can from everyone we can. We're here to love each other and soak up the experiences that others have been through and apply them to our own lives. Without each other, we are nothing.

I don't think we realize how big of a part of ourselves is really parts of those around us. When we share knowledge, or a story we are giving another person a part of us. We're constantly grabbing on to and giving away these fragments of ourselves and we don't even notice the patchwork of experiences and perspectives we are becoming. It's comforting to know that all we are is in some way carried by not only those we love but by everyone that comes into contact with us.

A challenge I've been trying to work on is to accept everyone I come in to contact with as a teacher (directly from Eat Pray Love <3 love me some Julia Roberts) there's so much to learn and to see it's actually unfathomable but that's why we have each other, to grow from and to help grow.

Appreciate the fact that you are making some kind of impact. Accept that you matter and what you do matters. And acknowledge that everything everyone else does MATTERS. And make a conscious effort to learn something from everyone and everything. :)

This bus smells like a fart and a kid is eating an entire bag of limes.

See you later alligator

- J money

Passion

Passion is dead. At some point in time we decided that searching for what you're passionate for was too much work. We've instead settled for this perfect little cut out box of "happiness" this suburban white picket fence straight A student life, that's not a passion that's a prison. There are people in my life who are brought to tears over anything less than the perfect gilded A++++++++++. All we want to do is label everything. I swear there are percentages on everything and it's killing us it's killing our chance at passion and at happiness.

That's what I want to find pure exciting fingertip shaking passion. Wether it's as a world renowned surgeon or a hippie in a van. When is the last time you felt so excited about something you could not PHYSICALLY contain it? Thinking about it made your voice crack and no one could understand how wonderfully passionate you were. My band teacher made a perfect analogy he said we played like we had a crap sandwich in one hand and a caramel cheesecake in the other, and we go at both with the same eh attitude. That's how we go about our lives and frankly I DON'T WANT MY LIFE TO BE A CRAP SANDWICH. I want freakin Jesus quality cheesecake.

We need to find our passion (cliché comin up) because we don't know how long we have. This summer my mom was in a crazy accident were a 60 foot tree crushed her right in front of me (that's a story for later) on a perfectly normal day. And for good 20 minutes I thought my mom was dead (she's all good now). One minute she was alive and then for all I knew she was gone. How suck is that? Life ends in a second and we can either live a meh life absent of love and full of Doritos or we can suck the marrow out of every day and live it to the fullest (pretty sure part of that is from Dead Poets Society).

All I want from my life is pure unadulterated passion, a love for life. It's such a simple thing but it's so hard to break away from the norm. But if anything comes from this post I want you to feel challenged to not be satisfied with an average life. Pursue happiness with whatever heart you have and find your passion wherever it may be.

Live long and prosper
Meow and out

- Juan Keem

Wanderlust

In Need Of Adventure

Well it appears that we are in a conundrum. Particularly me, not as to say you aren't as well but I am most interested in the one I find myself in, maybe they're the same, or possibly completely different, who can say?.... .. ... anyway conundrum, a word that is so nice to say, you almost forget the meaning, classified by the Google machine as a "confusing and difficult problem or question". Which precisely describes this predicament I/we are in.

My conundrum is that I can't decide if I want to do everything or absolutely nothing. It is a confusing question because depending on your interpretation of "success", everything could be nothing or nothing could very well be everything, it's baffling. This quest (yep quest) of mine is best simplified and described as a quest to determine for myself what is everything and what is nothing, what is being and what is living. It is the most simple conundrum I've heard and is still equally perplexing.

So one may ask, "how does one go about solving such a problem?" My answer would be to think OuTsIdE the box, to separate yourself from everything you know start over, rediscover, reinvent. Your first reaction may be a scoff or possibly a "HELL YEAH", either way it's my solution and I have to say that I'm psyched (THROWBACK). Here it is.. .... . . ... . ... In three years I will go on a three month trip around the world with three of my closest friends to reevaluate life and learn from experiences in unfamiliar places where the only thing you have to worry about is living. Looking back on what I just wrote I realize how many threes there are in this plan but I've heard that three is a good number from somewhere, the bible maybe?

In summary, conundrum, problem, solution, threes, Jesus. I've never been one for doing things small, when I actually decide that a plan is worth getting off of the living room floor for I tend to follow through. Three years may seem like a ridiculous amount of time but really the Earth has been around for millions and millions of years, so settle down three years is nothing in comparison. Three years is actually the perfect amount of time to get my life together, raise the funds, plan the trip, and make this blog thing happen so that my experiences and outlooks on things can transcend myself and in some way effect (affect? I never learned and I blame it on public schooling and in some way Michelle Obama) a greater wealth of people. Which I believe is the most important thing in life, sharing yourself with others, growing and learning from as many people as possible, and finding happiness and balance. 
-Learning through life and love, 
I guess you could call that my new mantra.

Until then
-Justin 
(A.k.a Juan, Lasercat, J-money, JKim, J-dolla, J-$) 
하자 롤 항문 - (Korean for " Lets Roll Butthole)